
l^c ^^^ 



Qass L-^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



STORY 



TURKEY AND ARMENIA 



With a full and accurate account of the recent massacres 
written by eye witnesses. 



EDITED BY 

REV. JAMES WILSON^IERCE D. D. 



A SKETCH OF CLARA BARTON AND THE RED CROSS. 



ILLUSTR^Ai.TED. 



ADD r„. 



BALTIMORE: XCXA-IV ^ ' 

R. H.WOODWARD COMPANY, ,^^^^ ^^^b:i^J> 



COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY 

R. H. Woodward Company. 



c.A'^ 






PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 



In the preparation of this book great care and pains has been 
taken to use only such information of the massacres and condition 
of the country as were known to bo trustworthy. Many hundreds 
of letters, written by eye-witnesses, have been placed at our dis- 
posal; but nearly all of these we are unable to publish. Nearly all 
which are given were furnished by private parties, who had 
fi-iends in Armenia, or were written by missionaries. We are 
compelled to withhold in nearly every instance the names of the 
writers of these letters on account of their personal safety. The 
illustrations, which greatly increase the value of this book, liave 
been secured through the kindness of former residents in that 
country and also by direct importation from Constantinople, and 
fui-nish the reader a truthful knowledge of the country and its 
people. 

Tlie publishers desire to make a public acknowledgment of the 
kindness of the editors of the Review of Reviews, Independent, 
and Outlook, of New York. Thoy kindly gave permission to make 
use of articles which had appeared in their papers. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PACK. 

Introcliietory, 1 



CHAPTER n. 
Tlio Evil of the Turk, 25 

CHAPTER in. 
Abdul Hamid, Sultan ^t Turkey, 37 

CHAPTER IV. 
The People of Turkey— Their Home-Life and Religion, . . . lOo 

CHAPTER V. 
Constantinople, 208 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Armenians— Who Are They? 220 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Armenian Church, 231 

CHAPTER VIII. 
A Trip Through Armenia. 2."'»3 



CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER IX. 

PAGE. 

Gladstone on the Armenian Question, 291 

CHAPTER ?<. 
Tlie Kurds, 304 

CHAPTER XI. 
Home-Life of the Armenians, 318 

CHAPTER Xn. 
Opinions of Distinj^uished Writers, . 332 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Armenian Outrages, 364 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Condition of Armenia, 379 

CHAPTER XV. 
Rtory of the Massacres— How Caused 445 

CHAPTER XVI. 
ClavM Karton and the Red Cross, 487 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



A Wealthy Turkish Gentleman and His Friends. . . Frontispiece. 

Fountain of Aehmet III, Constantinople 5 

Constantinople— Pedestal of Obelisk 11 

Constantinople— Sweet Waters of Asia 11 

Palace of Beylerbey, Constantinople 17 

The Execution of Criminals at City Gate, Fabriz 23 

A Turkish Cawas 29 

Abdul Hamid, Sultan of Turkey 35 

Head Bishop of the Armenian Church 35 

Beggars 41 

Khalil Rifaat Pasha, the New Grand Vizier, on his way to 

take up his Post 47 

Mosque of the Sultan at Sweet Waters of Europe 53 

Entrance to a Mosque 59 

Imperial Kiosk of Sweet Waters of Asia— Constantinople. . . 65 

Interior of Mosque of St. Sophia, Constantinople 71 

Palace of Balarius, Constantinople 77 

Seven Towers of Constantinople 83 

Gate to a Palace 89 

Interior of Mosque of St. Sophia 89 

Gate of Seraskierat, Constantinople 95 

A Scene in Turkey 101 

Roberts College 107 

Imperial Palace of Dolman Baytche, Constantinople 113 

Great ^Nlosque, Tomb of John the Baptist, Damascus 119 

Tomb of Sultan Malimaud 119 

Massacre in the Streets of Marash 1 25 

7 



8 LIST OF ILLUSy RATIONS. 

PAGE. 

Mosque of the Sultan Valide 131 

Bosphorus 131 

Au Oriental Funeral 137 

Burned Ooluiiin of Constantine 145 

Temple of Jupiter— East End of Peristyle, Baalbak 145 

Kiosk of the Reviews 153 

Interior of Mosque, Soliman 153 

Interior of a Mosque 161 

A TurkisJi Cart 169 

Damascus— Group of Tombs of Damasquins Emir 169 

Mosque of Solimar, Constantinople 177 

Dancing Dervishes 185 

Turkish Ladies 185 

Howling Dervish 193 

A Turkish Lady of Wealth 193 

Mohammedans at Prayer 201 

View of Constantinople 209 

A Turkish Feast 217 

Armenian Women in Walking Costume 225 

Obelisk, Constantinople 233 

An Armenian High Priest 241 

An Armenian Woman 249 

Armenian School Children 257 

A Street in the City of Van. Armenia 265 

Armenian Princess 273 

Turkish High Priest 273 

An Armenian City 281 

Armenian Women Making Bread 289 

A Group of Kurds, Armenia 289 

An Armenian Village 297 

A "Mollah" Narrating the Battle of Kerhala i ';o Bazar at 

Tabriz, Persia 305 

In a Kurdish Camp 313 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 9 

PAGE. 

A Kurd Captiiring an Armenian \yoman 'jl*' 

Mt. Ararat ^-^ 

A Newspaper Reporter Being Pursued by Turkish Soldiers. . 329 

Armenian Feasant Women Weaving Turkish Carpets 337 

Kurdish Bandits ^2 ' 

A Rural Scene in Armenia ^-i-'^ 

Vestibule of Palace of Dolma Baytche 353 

Map of Turkey in Asia 361 

Armenian Villagers Pursued by Kurds 369 

Armenians Being Sent Away to Exile 377 

A Group of Villagers, Armenia 385 

A Harvest Scene 385 

Armenian Refugees 393 

A Scene in Armenia 401 

An Armenian Family 409 

Koor-se, Armenia 417 

Carrying Presents to the Shah of Persia on Birthday 425 

Baalbets— Sculpture of Ceiling of Temple of Jupiter 433 

Tower of Galata 433 

Wall and Gate of Libasgun 441 

Armenians Slain in the Streets of Baiburt 449 

Armenian Mother and Children 457 



Story of Turkey and Armenia. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 



One of the three most remarkable epochs in the world's 
history was the Gothic age. With it we irresistibly associate 
the barons of Runnymede, the great names of Saint Louis 
and Saint Ferdinand, the greater name of Dante. We rarely 
remember to put with them another name, representing, it is 
true, no Christian advance; instead, one in Islam. The 
name is Othman or Osman, and from that name is derived 
Ottoman or Osmanli. Othman's father was the leader of a 
wild heathen band from Central Asia. Until recently the 
subjects of the Ottoman Empire have recognized only the 
name Ottomans or- Osmanhs, not that of Turk, which ap- 
plies to a wider race. The Uighurs, or Turks, were pushed 
forth from Central Asia by the Mongols. The Turks gradu- 
ally came west, and were probably, like the Kurds of today, a 
wild race supplying neighboring rulers with mercenary 
troops. They settled in Khorasan (the northeastern prov- 
ince of Persia). They began their career first as slaves and 
then as mercenary soldiers. Being of great beauty and vigor, 
they were favorites with all the princes with whom they came 
in contact, and whom they well served. They developed be- 



2 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA.- 

fore long into a military aristocracy, and ended in becoming 
Seljuk Sultans, governing most of the Khalifs' dominions in 
Asia. They even controlled the power of the Persians and 
Arabs. Out of the many tribes of Turks, one came into Asia 
Minor, and it was the good fortune of its leader to help the 
Seljuk Sultan in battle against the Mongols at Angora 
(1250). Gaining the victory through his help, the Sultan 
gave to his supporters a few square miles of land under Bithy- 
nian Olympus; the name of the place was Sugat, and these 
few square miles became the nucleus of the Ottoman Empire. 
The leader of the Turks had managed afifairs so well as to 
obtain for his son Othman the succession of the Seljuk Sul- 
tan. Othman — a prince of much physical prowess, bravery 
and patience, qualities which he transmitted to his descend- 
ants — continually advanced his small domain (making Brusa 
his capital), until it absorbed northwestern Asia Minor. One 
of the cleverest methods of conquest was in the formation of 
the Janissaries (new troops), composed of children taken 
when young from conquered races, generally Christians. 
The new soldiers were compelled to become ^Moslems and to 
undergo a life of severe discipline. Separated from family 
and country, given great pay, and opportunity for the grati- 
fication of ambition and of pleasure, this military organiza- 
tion became a redoubtable instrument. Seventy years ago 
the Janissaries were suppressed; they had grown too arro- 
gant. The Ottoman civil and military government was re- 
garded in such a friendly way that the Greek Emperor did 
not even object when the Turks crossed the Hellespont, and 
for the first time took possession of European soil. About 



8T0BT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 3 

this time a convenient earthquake happened, and the walls of 
Gallipoli fell down. The Turks immediately marched in, de- 
claring that Providence had opened the city to them, and 
they could not think of disregarding so clear an instance of 
divine interposition. From Gallipoli in a few years the 
Turks had spread over all what is no\v known as Turkey in 
Europe, and then began to conquer the outlying provinces — 
Servia, Bulgaria, Rumania. 

This development of Turkish aggrandizement had been a 
wonderful one, and it occupied only a century and one-half. 
We shall look far and wide to find a parallel. The reason for 
this growth was not in the circumstances which surrounded 
the Turks, but in the great abilities which each of their rulers 
represented. Cruel they were, and rudely ruled a rude race ; 
yet there is no question as to their pre-eminent power in mili- 
tarism and statecraft. Now% however, there came an event 
wdiich not only delayed by fifty years the capture of Constan- 
tinople, but seemed to blot out the Ottoman Empire. It 
was the descent of Tamerlane. This great warrior was him- 
self of Mongol-Turkish race, and had established his domin- 
ion throughout low^er Russia, Central Asia, India, Persia and 
Syria, but he had been resisted by the Mamluk Sultans of 
Egypt and by the Ottoman Sultan of Turkey. The latter 
was crushed by Tamerlane on that same plain of- Angora 
where the Ottoman Empire had taken its start. The Mos- 
lems, believers in fate, regarded the empire doomed where it 
had begun. 

Yet by the energy of a great man — the Sultan Mohammed 
— the start was made all over again, and only half a century 



4 ,STOi?Y OF TURKEY AXD ARMEXIA. 

sufiiced to rebuild the empire, to overwhelm the Christians 
with just retribution for their perfidy, and to capture Con- 
stantinople. How could all this be done, and so soon? 
First, because of the superiority in physical and moral worth 
of the' Ottoman Turks; because they represented a better 
government than those about them; because the disinte- 
grated peoples of Asia Minor in the south and the conquered 
Christians in the north had become so impressed with these 
things that they were ready to fuse with the turks, even to 
accepting the religion of the latter; and because the clever 
Ottomans made no difference between born and converted 
Moslems in preferment; indeed, most of the Grand Viziers 
have been of Christian or of Jewish birth. 

After Constantinople, the Crimea, Greece, Armenia and 
Kurdistan were taken, while a foothold was gained on the 
Italian coast at Otranto. Many important conquests now 
followed — those of Mesopotamia, Syria, Arabia and Egypt; 
this was not only a vast addition, but, what was of infinitely 
greater moment, gave to the Ottoman Sultan the title of 
Khalif, for by the conquest of the Mamluks he succeeded to 
their supremacy over the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, 
while the last of the Baghdad Khalifs made over to the Otto- 
man Sultan the symbols of his high office — namely, the cloak 
and the standard of the Prophet liimself. Then came the 
conquest of Hungary; but when Suleiman the Magnificent 
would take Vienna, his siege came to naught, and the Otto- 
man Empire met its first rebuff. Still, its conquests in- 
creased, as a rule, in spite of a second check — this time at 
Lc-::.nto; Cyprus, Tunis, and Georgia were added to the 



STORY OF TURKEY AXI) ARMENIA. 7 

empire, and the first conflict experienced with Russia. The 
year 1600 marked the point of greatest territorial extent. 

Then followed a decHne; Turkey itself receded, then it was 
dismembered. Hungary was first lopped off, then Tran- 
sylvania, then Wallachia, and so on; and the empire had to 
acknowledge the independence of peoples once subject to it. 
We have noted the causes of growth ; those of decline are no 
less evident. In the first place, Turkey has ever been a con- 
sumer, not a producer ; a military power, she has fattened on 
what conquered lands could give her; she gave them nothing. 
Often she gave them worse than nothing — cruelty, brutal 
lust, slavery. After Suleiman — a prince who held his own 
in that Renaissance age which saw a Charles V, an Elizabeth, 
a Francis I, a Leo X — there was, in place of barbaric but di- 
rect government, indirection and the growing seclusion of the 
Sultan, induced largely by the pernicious harem influence. 
The first ten sultans had been robust, able, cruel; the last 
twenty-five (save Mahmud II) have been no less cruel, but 
no longer robust, no longer able. There were now, however, 
external causes to accentuate the internal, the chief of which 
was Russia's rise. By 1700 the Turkish dominions in Europe 
had shrunk to half their former extent. The next century 
saw Russian aggrandizement come to such a point that not 
only did the Crimean Khanate become independent of Tur- 
key, but gates at Moscow and Kherson were inscribed "The 
Way to Constantinople," and Constantine became henceforth 
an honored name in the Russian Imperial family. Later 
events — Navarino, the disaffection of Egypt, the treaty of 
L^nkiar-Skelessi lately runiorcd to have been readopted), the 



8 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Crimean war reaction, quickly followed by the Lebanon 
affair, the independence of Rumania, the successive revolts 
of the Herzegovina, of Bulgaria, Servia and Montenegro, re- 
sulting in the Russo-Turkish war, and the further dismem- 
berment of Turkey in both Europe and Asia — are not these 
summed up in Lord Beaconsfield's phrase, "Peace with 
honor?" — a phrase which has meant so much peace to some 
of the European States, little and big, so little honor to Great 
Britain and Turkey. The latter's hold in Europe, both in 
area and population, is now reduced to less than one-fourth 
of what it once was. It still has much of its vast area and 
population in Asia; but in Africa the loss of Algiers, Tunis 
and Egypt takes away two-thirds of its area and twelve times 
the present population in Tripoli. 

Fifty years ago the Emperor Nicholas said to Sir Hamilton 
Seymour: ''We have on our hands a sick man, a very sick 
man." The present invalid is the Sultan Abdul-Hamid H. 
He succeeded to the throne in 1876, on the deposition of his 
older brother, Murad V, who was declared to be suffering 
from idiocy, and has since been kept in strict seclusion. Ab- 
dul-Hamid is the thirty-fifth sovereign in uninterrupted male 
descent of the House of Othman, the founder of the empire. 
No family in European history can show such an example of 
continuous authority. The crown is inherited by the eldest 
male descendant in the imperial line, no matter whether he 
be the Sultan's son, uncle, cousin, or nephew. 

The government of Turkey is often called the "Sublime 
Porte." This name is taken from the only gate in general 
use along tlic quay wliich runs outside the whole length of the 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 9 

sea-wall of Constantinople. It is called Bab-i-Humayum 
(the great gate of the Seraglio), or the Sublime Porte. In 
the old days, just without this gate pyramids of heads used to 
be piled up, trophies of war. The Sublime Porte really 
means the Sultan. Pie is absolute in matters both temporal 
and spiritual. He delegates his authority in temporal things 
to his Grand Mzier, and in religious affairs to the Sheik-ul- 
Islam. In connection with the Sultan and Grand Vizier is the 
Privy Council, the ministers of which, however, are little 
more than secretaries. Connected with the Sheik-ul-Islam 
is the Ulema, a body comprising priests and lawyers, and also 
the Mufti, the interpreters of the Koran. The government is 
thus before everything a theocracy, and is irreformable to 
any permanent degree. True, a constitution was proclaimed 
in 1876, but it lasted only a few months. There can be no 
equality of Moslem and Christian before the law. Yet the 
Sultan has repeatedly promised "perfect equality of civil 
rights" to all his subjects. What he really has had to do, 
however, is to exercise his Khalifate. By its votaries the 
Mohammedan religion is believed to be God's last expression 
of His w^ill. Therefore, the Sultan, the IMoslem counterpart 
of papal vicegerency and infallibility, is not only a sovereign, 
he is also an Inquisitor. He must needs compel all to em- 
brace Islam; if the "heathen" will not, then death to them; if 
Christians and Jews will not, then servitude to them. The 
Turkish dominion in Europe is about equally divided be- 
tween Mohammedans and Christians, but in Asia the former 
form a vast majority. The Christians number those wlio 



10 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

use the Roman Catholic Hturgy, the Greeks, Armenians, Bul- 
garians, Syrians, Maronites, and Protestants. 

The empire is partitioned into thirty-one departments 
called Vilayets. These are subdivided into provinces (San- 
jaks), and these in turn into districts (Kazaks), and these 
again into subdistricts and communities. The Governor of 
a Vilayet is called a Vali, and is assisted by a Provincial 
Council. The provinces, districts, etc., are governed by au- 
thorities, and the names of the Governors of sub-districts and 
of communes — Mudir and Muktar — have lately become fa- 
miliar. The making and carrying out of Turkish law have 
not yet come to such a state of perfection that foreigners feel 
like giving up their own consular courts, which they retain, 
and by means of which are under the same laws as in their 
respective countries. Cases between foreign and Turkish 
subjects, however, are tried in the Ottoman courts. Through 
the prevailing dishonesty, foreign governments are also 
compelled to maintain their own postoffices in Turkey. Yet, 
by England at least, Turkish government is apparently 
thought good enough for unarmed Christians, since, in spite 
of solemn obligations incurred eighteen years ago, not one 
thing has the British government done to succor those Chris- 
tians. 

The Turks today are still nomadic. Their agriculture is 
backward, not so much from soil-sterility in Albania or in 
Asia Minor as from the apathy of the inhabitants to settled 
vocations. In Macedonia and in Thrace the soil is fertile, 
but the same poverty is seen. The people have ruthlessly 
destroyed their forests. Their mines are unworked despite 




C()Xr^TANTIN(H%E-PEDESTAL OF OBELISK. 



CONSTA.XTINOrLE— SWHI-rr WATERS OF ASIA. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 13 

the gold, silver, copper and salt known to exist abundantly. 
With an empire possessing every kind of soil and climate, 
vegetable, animal and mineral product, the Ottomans are 
bankrupt ; they seem as alien as when, six hundred years ago, 
they emerged from obscurity. 

Armenia is a country lying about Mount Ararat as a cen- 
tral point. The country is now partly in Russia, partly in 
Persia, partly in Asia Minor. Turkish Armenia is about the 
size of New England; it is a mountain land, some of the 
Taurus peaks rising over 10,000 feet. There are a few val- 
leys in which scant rice and cotton may be grown, but the 
high plateau is mostly a grazing place. As in the rest of the 
Ottoman Empire, agriculture is in a pitifully primitive state, 
and, though there are abundant deposits, mining does not 
exist. The climate is one of extremes of cold and heat. The 
sources of the Euphrates and Tigris are in Armenia, and 
there is also Lake Van, a salt lake. The roads are nothing 
but bridle-paths; they are infested with brigands, and there 
are no inns. Geographical isolation is not the least of the 
hardships in the present crisis. 

The Armenians represent an ancient civilization, and have 
kept their individuality through all ages. Their name comes 
from an early king, Haik, a descendant of Japhet. Armenia 
is mentioned several times in the Old Testament; for instance 
(2 Kings xix, 37), when the sons of Sennacherib are said to 
have escaped thither. The best known Armenian king, Ti- 
graiK's 1, was an ally of Cyrus the Great, and in Xenophon's 



14 STORT OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 

Retreat of the Ten Thousand we have a description of Ar- 
menia as it might be today. Then came Alexander's con- 
quest, followed by those of the Parthians, Romans, Byzan- 
tines, Saracens and Turks. The latter overran the country 
in the eleventh century. 

The Armenian language is, like the Greek, an independent 
branch of the Indo-Germanic. The Gothic Bishop Ulfilas 
was the first to give form to the early German, by his trans- 
lation of the Bible, and so did the Armenian Bishop Alesrob 
to Armenian; he invented the Armenian alphabet, and then 
translated the Bible into that tongue. The language is dis- 
tinguished by two characteristics : there is no gender, and all 
words are accented on the last syllable. 

There are now about four million Armenians, of whom 
only 600,000 are in xA.rmenia — a fourth of the entire number 
in all Turkey. There are 1,250,000 in Russian Armenia, and 
they are fairly prosperous there; 150,000 in Persian Armenia; 
100,000 in Europe, and about 5000 in this country. The say- 
ing runs that if it takes ten Christians to cheat a Jew, it takes 
ten Jews to cheat an Armenian, and the cleverness of the lat- 
ter in trade is well known. They go to Constantinople, and 
the great cities whenever possible, and often become affluent. 
The stay-at-homers attend to their flocks, till their soil, make 
their honey, and weave their carpets and rugs. 

Half the population of Armenia is ^loslem, and it is made 
up of Kurds and Turks. The former are by nature brave 
and hospitable, but are still unsubjugated, and have become 
brutal through contact with the degenerate Turk. Contrary 
to the customs of other Mohammedans, their women iin 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 15 

about unveiled and enjoy much liberty. The Kurds are now 
organized into guerrilla regiments of the Turkish army. 

According to legend, the Apostle Thaddeus founded the 
Armenian Church; according to history, St. Gregory the Il- 
luminator, in 289, when the king was baptized and Christi- 
anity became the national religion. The Armenian is sup- 
posed to be the oldest of any national church. As they were 
at war during the Council of Chalcedon, the Armenians did 
not attend it and did not approve its decrees. This led to a 
separation, and, about 500 years ago, a division in the Arme- 
nian Church itself occurred, when a branch of it acknowl- 
edged the Pope's supremacy. The highest Armenian eccle- 
siastical dignitary is called Kathohkos. He resides near 
Erivan, the capital of Russian Armenia, and at least once in 
their lives all Armenians must journey thither. There is a 
belief in the worship of saints in the Armenian Church, but 
none in purgatory; there are ignorance and superstition, but 
the work of foreign missionaries is doing much to break 
through the dry ecclesiastical crust. In Armenia and Asi- 
atic Turkey there are about 250 Americans, who hold over 
$2,000,000 worth of property for religious, medical and edu- 
cational uses. These figures do not cover our large commer- 
cial interests there. 

Until the Crimean war, Russia had exercised a hundred 
years a kind of protectorate over the Ottoman Christians, but 
in 1856 she was deprived of that protectorate, and the Great 
Powers of Europe, in a collective protectorate, took her 
place. Russia had always accomplished something with the 
Sultan; he never forgot that, with one exception, for two cen- 



16 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

turies Russia had defeated him in every war. Therefore he 
was deHghted at the chance of escaping from deaUng with 
one Powder to deaHng with a number, for what was every- 
body's business was nobody's business. Furthermore, he 
was convinced that the integrity of his empire was essential 
to the balance of power in Europe. The best proof of this 
was the fact that Turkey had been admitted into the comity 
of nations. British preponderance was meanwhile growing, 
and in 1880 England bound herself to defend the Armenian 
frontier against Russia, and to see that reforms were carried 
out in Armenia. The curious situation is that, should Rus- 
sia decide to interfere with the awful iniquities which have 
been going on in Armenia, the Sultan could, under this con- 
vention, call upon England to protect him. An added re- 
sponsibility of England's is found in the Treaty of BerHn. 
The sixty-first clause of that treaty declares that the Porte 
shall carry out the reforms demanded by local requirements 
in Armenia. As a part of that agreement, the Sultan guar- 
antees the security of Armenia against the Circassians and 
the Kurds, and agrees that he "will periodically make known 
the steps taken to this end to the Powers, who will superin- 
tend their application." Not once has Turkey announced 
any reforms; there have been none. In the Russo-Turkish 
Treaty of San Stefano the Sultan had bound himself to intro- 
duce reforms in Armenia, and the Russian troops were to 
remain in that province until such reforms were established. 
To her shame be it said, England was the only Power insist- 
ing upon the submission of the Treaty of San Stefano to the 
revision of the Congress at Berlin. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 19 

Thus, eighteen years ago, England and Turkey made their 
compact. Neither the Christian nor the Moslem Power has 
since done anything to relieve the situation. For England 
there is no excuse; for Turkey, the only apology has been 
that the population of Armenia, being mixed, reforms cannot 
be instituted applicable to Christians and Mussulsmans alike ; 
but, as Canon MacColl points out, precisely the same objec- 
tions were made to the constitution which Lord Dufferin 
drew up for the Lebanon after the Syrian massacres in i860. 
That, however, did not prevent Great Britain insisting that 
the constitution should be accepted by the Porte, and events 
since then have abundantly justified such firmness. During 
these eighteen years, despite the Berlin Treaty, the Arme- 
nians have suffered as much as ever — latterly, far more. Their 
testimony is rarely taken in the courts; it is never acted on 
(while the uncorroborated evidence of a Mussulman is 
enough to send a Christian to jail). They may not bear arms. 
They are harassed by intolerable taxes. In addition to ordi- 
nary taxation (the assessing and collecting of which are out- 
rageously performed), for all Christians who refuse to em- 
brace Islam there is either death or the ransom from death, a 
capitation tax. Christians are excluded from the Ottoman 
army; in place of that service a tax is put on all males from 
three months old. There are extraordinary taxes for tem- 
porary purposes, which are never removed — we learn that the 
extraordinary tax levied in 1867 to pay the cost of the Sultan's 
visit to England is still being imposed, though the promise 
was that it should be levied onlv for that vear. Taxes are 



20 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

often demanded a year in advance, a promise being made that, 
the interval shall be exempted — a promise never kept. Then 
there is the dreaded hospitality tax. Every Christian sub- 
ject of the Sultan is legally bound to provide three days' gra- 
tuitous hospitality for any Moslem traveler who may chance 
to demand it. These Mohammedan guests are as unwelcome 
as they are omnipresent. They require not only the best the 
house affords in food, drink and shelter, but they regard no 
sanctity of person as inviolable ; indeed. Canon MacColl sees 
nothing improbable in the allegation that there is scarcely a 
Christian woman in Armenia who has not been outraged. 
While this is probably an exaggeration, we know that failure 
to pay a tax is regarded by Turkish law as rebelHon. The 
penalty is forfeiture of property or of Hfe. The Armenians 
have long been compelled to pay blackmail to the tax-gather- 
ers, so that property and Hfe, and that which is dearer than 
life — the dignity of their women — might be preserved. The 
Christians have now become so impoverished that they can- 
riot meet all these extortions, for, after paying ordinary taxes, 
the peasant's share of his crop is but one-third. 

This impoverishment was the cause of the Sassun massacre 
a year and one-half ago. The Christians had no money. The 
Kurds stole flocks from the villages. The Armenians tried 
to recover the flocks, and a fight took place, in which some 
Kurds were killed. Then it transpired that the latter were 
enrolled as soldiers. This was exactly what was wanted. 
The Christians had doubly forfeited their right to Hfe, and an 
imperial order went forth to diminish the population. The 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 21 

population was diminished by just so much; it would not do 
to exterminate the Armenians — the milch-cow business is 
too good to be destroyed — but the Armenians must be cut 
down to a certain level. Killing goes on, say from ten to 
four, when the level is supposed to be reached, but woe to a 
Turk who kills after four; he himself is summarily shot. 

The Turks allege that the Armenians were preparing for a 
general uprising, and that their minds had been inflamed by 
paid agitators. The first charge was that the Armenians 
wished to set up an autonomous government, eventually 
comprising their co-religionists in Russia and Persia. The 
next was that the agitators were trying to sow the seed of 
discontent and anarchy in order to prepare the way for a 
strong power (Russia) to step in and keep order. A third 
charge was that the agitators were Nihilists. It is true, as 
we are told, that the real aim of the Armenians, as a whole, is 
somewhat obscured by the utterances and acts of a few irre- 
sponsible Armenian hotheads. 

Whatever may be said about a choice of evils as between 
Russia and Turkey, in the case of the Armenians there is no 
longer any question. In his recent book, Mr. Frederick 
Greene wtII says: "Russia is crude, stupid, and, in certain 
respects, brutal; but she is not decrepit, debauched and dot- 
ing like ofificial Turkey. "^ '•' " Christians and Moham- 
medans cannot live together on equal terms under a Moham- 
medan government, because the Mohammedan religion for- 
bids that shey should; but Mohammedans and Christians 
may perfectly well live together under a Christian govern- 



22 8T0RT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

ment. They do so under the governments both of England 
and of Russia." 

While there are undoubtedly some honest Turks, no reli- 
ance may be placed on any promise of the Sultan, for no Sul- 
tan could ever carry them out. Religious principle and tem- 
poral policy ahke forbid. Reform in the Ottoman dominions 
cannot come from within ; it must come from without. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 25 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE EVIL OF THE TURK. 
By an Armenian.* 

The questions are often asked, ''Why does Turkey wage 
perpetual war against her Christian subjects? What are 
some of the grievances to which they are subjected and of 
which they complain? And why are the Turkish displays of 
barbarism allowed to go unchecked and unpunished at the 
close of the enlightened nineteenth century?" 

I would answer these questions from the standpoint of one 
reared in that country, and under those conditions of enslave- 
ment and persecution that surround all Christians there. The 
answer to the first question may be found in the teachings of 
the dominating religion of the government, Mohammedan- 
ism, whose watchword from the past to the present has been, 
'The sword is the key of heaven and hell" — meaning that 
those who accepted Mohammedanism, even from the terrors 
of the sword, should be saved, while those rejecting it should 
die by the same weapon and be damned. This is the only 
means used in propagating the religion of Islam. On either 
side of the pulpits of St. Sophia and the Mosque of Eyub are 
two flags hanging; one representing Judaism, and the other 
Christianity. When the imam goes up to the pulpit, he car- 
ries a wooden sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, 



♦The anthor of the article is a recent graduate of one of the leading theo- 
logical seminaries. 



26 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

to indicate that the conquest of the Koran over Judaism and 
Christianity is to be accompHshed by the sword, teaching the 
people that their wars are holy wars, and that the Moham- 
medan soldier is the executor of God's will and vengeance. 

No military service is required of either Jews or Christians, 
as they cannot be depended upon to defend Mohammedan- 
ism. Indeed, the government goes so far as to prohibit Ar- 
menians from possessing arms of any kind, even a penknife 
being forbidden them. 

This freedom from military service, which is a mark of deg- 
radation in the eyes of a Turk, has had some compensations. 
It has saved the Christians from the "wasting influences and 
destructive diseases of the camp and the battle-field, and has 
accustomed them to industry and thrift." But while they are 
free from military service, a special tax is imposed upon them 
for the support of the Turkish army and State. The taxes are 
classified as follows : (i) One-tenth of all the crops and fruits ; 
(2) four per cent, of the renting value of houses and 
lands; (3) five per cent, on every transfer; (4) an animal tax 
of thirty-three pence on every sheep and goat. Besides 
these, there are the road and labor taxes on the imaginary 
earnings of the Christians, and the military tax laid upon 
every male. 

The tithes are sold to the highest bidder, and the competi- 
tion is so keen that the successful bidder is forced to pay more 
than the entire just amount of the tax. Consequently the 
tithe-farmers are forced to resort to the worst form of extor- 
tion from the poor Christians, and, instead of making a care- 
ful and honest estimate of the taxable produce, assess it with- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 27 

out examination, often to more than double its amount. If 
the farmer has reaped his grain, he cannot store it in his barn 
until the tax-gatherer has surveyed it and taken out his lion's 
share. If the official is busy elsewhere, or is waiting for a 
bribe, the grain must be left on the field for days or weeks, 
exposed to drenching rain and scorching sun, until the whole 
crop becomes spoiled or is carried away by the rapacious 
Kurds. 

If the farmer is then unable to pay the tithe in kind, he is 
obliged to pay in ready cash. But as he rarely has enough 
to meet these exactions, his household utensils are seized and 
sold. The tax-gatherer, with his zabtiehs (policemen), is an 
ever-present scourge to the country. He is heartless and 
without honor. During the business transactions he must 
be entertained and provided for, with all his retinue and 
horses. If the farmer can by any means raise the money, he 
is only too glad to do so and free himself from this burden; 
but if he is unable, he is often maltreated and thrown into 
prison. False receipts, too, are often given, and the amount 
of the debt has thus to be twice paid. Should a Christian at 
any time seek redress for continued outrages on person or 
property, he can appeal only to the local governor or officials, 
and never to the Sultan, whose time is considered too valu- 
able to be taken up in looking after the welfare of his subjects. 
The press also is muzzled, as the following rules governing 
journaHsm in Constantinople will show: 

Art. 5. Avoid personalities. If anybody tells you that a 
governor or deputy-governor has been guilty of embezzle- 
ment, maladministration, or of any other blameworthy con- 
duct, treat the charge as not proved, and say nothing about it. 



28 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Art. 6. You are forbidden to publish petitions in which in- 
dividuals or associations complain of acts of mismanagement, 
or call the Sultan's attention to them. 

The Turkish officials, to whom the Christian is supposed to 
appeal in cases of grievances, are exceeding corrupt, commit- 
ting even more crimes than their inferior accomplices, whose 
administration is an abominable scourge. A few years ago 
one of the missionaries in Erzeroum told me that while he 
was on one of his mission tours he came across a poor Chris- 
tian shepherd who had just been attacked by the Kurds and 
despoiled of thirty sheep from his flock. The next day, upon 
the missionary's return to Erzeroum, he called upon the com- 
mander of the army to complain of the outrage, and discov- 
ered fifteen of the thirty sheep in his yard ! 

Under the ruinous management of these mercenary offi- 
cials, the country which God made so rich in resources has 
become poor. These men have transformed their official 
privileges into prerogatives of tyranny, and there is no bound 
to their avarice. Such is the system of political economy 
practiced in the internal affairs of the provinces in the name 
of Padishah by officials who are ''lofty in adulations and cal- 
umny, perfidy and treason." In the eyes of the Turkish gov- 
ernment, suspicion of her non-Mussulman subjects is equal 
to proof, intention to mischief, and the intention is not less 
criminal than the act. This was the attitude of the govern- 
ment in relation to the recent Sassoun massacre. As soon 
as the Pasha of Bitlis sent word to Constantinople that the 
Armenians were in rebellion, without waiting for proof, the 
Turkish troops were sent to the scene with orders to suppress 
the revolt — orders which they knew they must interpret as 




A TURKISH CAWA^ 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 31 

meaning the extermination of whole villages if they would 
please the Sultan. After wholesale butchery, Zeki Pasha 
reported that, "not finding any rebellion, wx cleared the coun- 
try so that none should occur in the future." This stroke of 
policy was afterwards praised in the Court as an act of patriot- 
ism. 

Why has the Sultan failed to perform his obligations as 
pledged in the Berlin Treaty? Because, according to Mo- 
hammedanism, ''no promise can bind the faithful against the 
interest and duty of their religion.'' For nearly twenty years 
he has occupied the throne, but all the justice which he has 
shown, and the peace that he has been able to maintain, must 
be ascribed to the pressure brought upon him by the Treaty 
Powers. Take, for instance, the case of Mussa Bey. When 
all Europe demanded an investigation, the Sultan bestirred 
himself to a pretense of political reformation, but it was short- 
lived. Duplicity, shiftlessness and deceit are his great char- 
acteristics. 

No pledge made in the Berlin Treaty has been respected. 
According to that, there was to be religious toleration in 
Turkey. Has there been? Far from it. The Sultan has 
scarcely lived up to the injimction of Mohammed, who said, 
''Christians and Jews may have their churches or synagogues, 
repair or rebuild them ; but no new churches or synagogues 
shall be built." 

It is the delight of the Turks to profane and pillage Chris- 
tian churches, and in this sacrilege they are upheld by the 
weakness of tlie Sultan. 

Who is tliis man? Well mav one ask. 



32 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, 
That he has grown so great? 

He is the son of a slave of obscure parentage, with no endow- 
ments of mind or heart that should fit him for the responsible 
position of sovereign and pontiff. He is utterly incompetent 
to remedy official vices, and leaves the affairs of the country 
to adjust themselves while he busies himself in deciding what 
shall be the costume of the comedians and actresses in the 
French opera, for which he has a great fondness. His pal- 
aces and kiosks exceed all former examples of royal luxury. 
His domestics number 6000, and $11,000,000 is required to 
cover the annual expenses of his royal house and table. No- 
thing arouses his lethargy save the sound of pleasure or music 
or the talk of his concubines, wives and comedians, who are 
really his ministers, ^^l^ile 6000 courtiers (who are the mer- 
cenaries of many fragmental tribes) wait on his holy person 
daily, the Christians are supporting his tottering throne; yet 
the whole policy of the government of the officials of the 
Kurds and Circassians is the extermination of the Armenians. 
This is all in accordance with Said Pasha's policy,- who said : 
"The solution of the Armenian question consists in the anni- 
hilation of the Armenian race." Will the following well-au- 
thenticated instance, which is but one of hundreds, be a sur- 
prise to you? During the spring of 1889, in the Armenian 
town of Zeitune, consisting of about 20,000 inhabitants, 600 
boys alone were poisoned by the doctors, who were bribed 
by the government to use impure vaccine matter; while indi- 
vidual cases of murder of noted Armenians are of daily occur- 
rence all around the empire. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 33 

Although the Kurds and Circassians are by no means the 
only agents in satisfying Said Pasha's craving for Armenian 
blood, they are very powerful factors in carrying on the work 
of destruction. When Sultan Medjid was talking of driving 
them out of the country, the cunning advice of his counsel 
was: "Let them alone to exterminate the non-]\lussulmans, 
or to keep them subject to your throne." 

Ever since they have been the favorites of the Sultan and 
government, who have equipped them with modern rifles in 
defiance of Article LXI of the Berlin Treaty, to assist them in 
their work of rapine, confiscation and depredation. Yet, 
lawless and barbarous, they are not only tolerated by the gov- 
ernment, but upheld. A numerous swarm of these mercena- 
ries assisted Zeki Pasha in the recent massacre, led either by 
bribes or by the hope of spoil or by the threats of fanatic 
mufti, whose cry echoed far above the groans of the dying, 
"Fight, fight! Paradise, paradise!" 

Today Turkey presents an awful picture of death and ruin. 
War, pestilence and famine press their rival claims, and we 
cry from a full heart, "How long, O Lord, how long?'' 

What, then, is left to us? The sad experience of five hun- 
dred years has shown that neither obedience nor submission 
can secure to us the safety of our mothers, sisters, wives and 
property. These many years we have submitted our bodies 
to the Turk; but patience is no more a virtue. It is an evil 
and unjust government that forces us to raise the voice of 
righteous indignation. If a government is a divine appoint- 
ment, then its mission should be to work for the welfare of 
the nation, holding its interests in trust. Since the Berlin 



34 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

treaty, intoleration by ruler and officials has gone from bad 
to worse. While subjects to the Sultan, we are considered 
as strangers and treated like enemies. The Turks claim that 
the recent troubles came from organized revolutionary so- 
cieties among the Christians. Were the Armenians organ- 
ized in societies when the massacres of 1835, i860, 1876 and 
1878 took place? Nay! Yet Armenian mothers were torn 
from their children, wiA^es from their husbands, daughters 
from their parents, and given over to a fate more horrible 
than death. Is it necessary, then, in order to justify our 
claim and secure the intervention of Europe, that the Turks 
should massacre twice or three times more than 15,000 Ar- 
menians? The present existing struggle resolves itself into 
a conflict between Christianity and Mohammedanism, be- 
tween Christian civilization and the eiTete civilization of Is- 
lam, between aggressive Christian progress and the indo- 
lence of the fatalistic Turk. Instead of being allowed to de- 
velop the industries of the country, we have been oppressed 
for five centuries by the iron hand of tyranny. We have 
been obliged to abandon agriculture, our farms being- 
usurped by the officials for the support of Turkish mosques. 
Misfortune after misfortune, however, has but intensified 
national love, and we would fain be prepared to sui)port our 
own autonomy. Should not Christian nations feel an inter- 
est in our country and in our struggle for life and liberty, and 
appoint a European governor, vested with full power of gov- 
erning the country? 



STOKl' OF TLliKEY AXD ARMENIA. 87 



CHAPTER III. 

ABDUL HAMID, SULTAN OF TURKEY. 
A Character Sketch. By W. T. Stead. 

[The Finest Pearl of the Age, and the esteemed Centre of the Universe; 
at whose grand portals stand tlie camels of justice and mercy, and to whom 
the eyes of the kings and people in the West have been drawn; the rulers 
there finding an example of political prowess and the classes a model of 
mercy and kindness; our Lord and Master the Sultan of the two Shores and 
the High King of the two Seas; the Crown of Ages and the Pride of all 
Countries, the greatest of all Khalifs; the Shadow of God on Earth; the 
successor of the Apostles of the Lord of the Universe, the Victorious Con- 
queror (Al-Ghazi) Sultan Abdul Hamid Khan. 

May God protect his Kingdom and place his glory above the Sun and the 
Moon, and may the Loi-d supply all the world with the goodness which 
proceeds from his Holy Majesty's good intentions.— Turkish newspaper 
quoted by Mr. H. Anthony Salmone, Nineteenth Century, November, 1894.] 

Amen and Amen! But if the stock of goodness at the dis- 
posal of the Lord does not exceed that which proceeds from 
His Holy Majesty's good intentions, it is to be feared the 
rest of the world will be put on short rations. Not that His 
Holy Majesty, the Shadow of God on earth, is lacking in the 
material with which on classic authority it is understood that 
hell is paved. He means well, his intentions are excellent. 
Where he fails is in the execution. It is this trifling detail 
that at present stands in the way of the elevation of Abdul 
Hamid's glory above that pf the sun and the moon, and, in- 
deed, it is to be feared, has consigned it to the nethermost 
depths — which, however, is unjust. 



38 STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Abdul Hamid is, of all men, one of those most to be pitied, 
but at the present moment there is but little pity or compas- 
sion shown him. The custom of punishing the Pope for 
Caesar's crimes is still fashionable among mankind, and 
Abdul Hamid is being made the scapegoat for all the atroci- 
ties of all the Ottomans. Not that he is without crimes of his 
own — black and bloody crimes, according to our Western 
ideas ; but, in the eyes of the Oriental, their only criminality 
consists in that they are not black and bloody enough to 
achieve their end. For the government of Osmanli has al- 
ways been, since the days when the Tartar horsemen first 
taught Asia how terrible was their wTath, a government of 
terror. By terror, the Sultans climbed to supreme power; 
by terror, they have maintained themselves on the throne of 
the Caesars for five centuries, and it is only because they can 
no longer inspire sufficient terror that the Ottoman Empire 
is crumbling into ruin. Abdul Hamid, no doubt, resorted 
to massacre as a British Prime Minister attempts to renew 
his power by a dissolution. Atrocities are as natural to the 
Turk as the general elections to a Parliamentarian. They 
are the traditional Ottoman method of renewing the man- 
date of the ruler. No doubt this is offensive to Western civ- 
ilization. The Sultan is an anachronism in the last decade 
of the nineteenth century, and those who have been trying 
to make believe that he was a civilized sovereign are no 
doubt experiencing the revulsion natural to disappointed 
hope. But those of us who have never for one moment for- 
gotten that the Turk is simply the aboriginal savage en- 
camped on the ruins of a civilization which he destroyed, can 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 39 

afford to be more mild and just in our estimate of the charac- 
ter of the last of the line of Othman. 

In this article I shall not depart from the rule governing 
all these character sketches. I shall tr}^ to represent Abdul 
Hamid as he appears to himself at his best, rather than as he 
appears to his victims at his worst. It is of course impos- 
sible to write entirely from his standpoint. But it is pos- 
sible to avoid the habit of judging the Sultan of Stamboul as 
if he were a smug citizen of a London suburb. And if we 
can but start from the point of realizing that it is as natural 
and as habitual to a Sultan to massacre as it is to a redskin to 
scalp, we shall at least avoid one element that would be ut- 
terly fatal to any realization of Abdul Hamid's position. 

1. BEFORE HIS ACCESSION. 

Put yourself in his place! Abdul Hamid, the nephew of 
Abdul Aziz, was reared in the seclusion of the seraglio. For- 
bidden to take any part in public affairs, he was flung in his 
earliest manhood into the midst of that debauchery which 
makes Constantinople the cesspool of the world. For some 
years he spent his Hfe in riot and excess. Then he suddenly 
reformed. From a progligate he became an ascetic. Like 
Prince Hal, he banished Jack Falstaff and all his companions 
of the wine cup, and set himself, with the zeal of a convert, to 
live a higher and a purer life. His enemies impute it to cal- 
culation. But it would be more charitable to believe that the 
young man had passed through the experience of conver- 
sion — a phenomenon fortunately by no means peculiar to 



40 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

the Christian faith. The penitent prodigal is not the less 
welcome because he goes to a mosque rather than to a 
church, and there seems to be no doubt that long before 
there was any prospect of his succeeding to the throne Abdul 
Hamid reformed his mode of Hfe and became, according to 
his lights, a pious and devout disciple of the Prophet. This 
was the more remarkable, as his conversion took place while 
Turkish society was still reveling in the false security and 
fictitious wealth that resulted from the loans which his uncle 
contracted with reckless prodigality. The latter part of the 
reign of Abdul Aziz was for the East what the closing years 
of the Second Empire was for France. Constantinople, like 
Paris, had its vulgar orgie of splendid debauchery — modern 
versions of Belshazzar's feast, in which the handwriting on 
the wall was hardly discerned before the avenger was at the 
gates. 

THE FALL OF ABDUL AZIZ. 

The French Empire went down in the earthquake of Sedan 
in 1870. It was not till five years later that that Nemesis 
overtook Abdul Aziz. The treasury, emptied by the Sul- 
tan's extravagance, could no longer pay the interest on the 
coupon, and when Abdul Aziz could no longer borrow, his 
end was at hand. After a brief pause, during which the 
storm clouds gathered and broke in insurrection in the ex- 
treme western province of the Herzegovina, the conspirators 
prepared to depose the Sultan. Then events followed each 
other with the rapidity of the swiftest tragedy. Abdul Ha- 
mid, from his retreat among the mollahs and imams, was 




By.rA).\K 



k^TOKY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 43 

startled by the news, first of the deposition of his uncle, then 
of the proclamation of his brother. Murad as Sultan. Fast 
on the heels of this came the suicide of the deposed Sultan. 
Then like a thunderclap came the assassination of the minis- 
ters who had deposed Abdul Aziz, and the summary execu- 
tion of their murderer. Meanwhile, the war clouds were 
gathering black and heavy on the Russian frontier. Massa- 
cres and atrocities in Bulgaria had filled Europe with shud- 
dering horror. Montenegro and Servia had gone to war; 
Russian volunteers were flocking to the Servian camp; the 
capital was seething with excitement. There was the under- 
swell of a revolution in Stamboul, the menace of a Russian 
invasion in Europe and in Asia. In the midst of all these 
portents of doom, the pious recluse was suddenly con- 
founded by the announcement that his brother Murad had 
gone mad, and that he must ascend the throne of Othman. 

THE DEPOSITION OF INIURAD. 

It is difficult to imagine a more trying ordeal than that 
through which Abdul TIamid had passed between the depo- 
sition of his uncle and the removal of his brother. It would 
have severely tested the nerves of the most experienced poli- 
tician in the most stormy of South American republics. 
What it must have been to the inexperienced and devout 
Hamid no one can quite realize. What is clear is that he 
shrank timidly from the perilous dignity of the tottering 
throne. He refused to consent to the deposition of his 
brother. He was reluctant to credit the reports of the phy- 



44 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

sicians. He insisted upon foreign advice. But Midhat had 
decided that Murad must be removed. According to the 
statements made in the recently published book about Mu- 
rad, the unfortunate Sultan might easily have recovered had 
he been allowed to rest. As it was, the conspirators pur- 
posely rendered his recovery impossible. The moment the 
foreign physician's back was turned, they succeeded in driv- 
ing their unfortunate victim into a condition of imbecility 
which justified, if it did not even necessitate, his deposition. 
Abdul Hamid persisted to the last in deprecating his bro- 
ther's removal. He objected strenuously to his own eleva- 
tion to the Sultanate. Only when it was made clear to him 
that A'lurad would be deposed in any case, and that he had 
only to choose between being Sultan himself or being put 
out of the way by the Sultan whom IMidhat would instal in 
his stead did he yield and consent to accept the thorny 
crown of the Ottoman Empire. So it came to pass that Mu- 
rad was formally deposed and Abdul Hamid reigned in his 
stead. 

II. SULTAN. 

''Yildiz, the palace of the Sultan," says a recent writer, 
"like the seraglio of the 'good old times,' contains all the 
dramatis personae of the tales of the Scheherazaide, the 
eunuchs, mollahs, pashas, beys, astrologers, slaves, sultanas, 
kadines, dancing women, Circassian and Georgian odal- 
isques, whose main object in existence is their own self-ad- 
vancement. Above this ant-hill of picturesque folk the in- 
teresting figure of the Sultan stands out in striking relief." 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 45 

When Abdul Hamid was installed as Sultan of Turkey 
above this picturesque ant-hill, the situation was such as 
might well have appalled the stoutest heart. Possibly the Sul- 
tan's ignorance — for although he is no fool, he, like all the 
other Turks, has never quite grasped the elementary facts 
which underlie the modern world — may have helped him. 
If he had had a wider range of knowledge or a more vivid 
imagination he might have gone the way of Murad. 

ALONE. 

Without training, without preparation, without a single 
friend whom he could trust, Abdul Hamid was suddenly 
brought forth from his seclusion by the men who had de- 
posed his uncle and his brother, and established on a throne 
reeling from the blows of domestic insurrection and foreign 
war. The last days of the Ottoman Empire seemed to have 
come. Among all the Powers, not one would promise him 
any help. Among all his pashas there was not one whom he 
did not believe would depose him tomorrow if private gain 
or public policy appeared to demand such a step. The 
treasury was empty. The credit of the empire was at such 
a low ebb that no new loan was possible, yet armies had to be 
retained in the field to keep Servia and Alontenegro in 
check. Preparations had to be pushed forward to prevent 
the threatened Russian invasion. Greece was threatening 
in the south, Russia in the north and east, while Austria was 
suspected of aggressive designs in the west. There was 
hardly a single province which was not threatening revolt. 



46 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

The Powers were clamoring for reforms, the first condition 
of which was lacking. What and where and whom was he 
to trust? 

KISMET. 

Now, Abdul Hamid was not learned, nor clever, nor 
heroic, nor indeed anything in particular. But he was born 
of the house of Othman, and he was a devout disciple of Mo- 
hammed. For five centuries it had been the will of Allah 
that there should never be lacking a member of the House 
of Othman to reign as the Shadow of God among men. 
Therefore he might not unreasonably conclude it was the 
will of Allah that he, the rightful representative of that great 
house, should deliver Islam from the ruin which menaced 
it. But if it was the will of Allah that such a deliverance 
should be wrought, then it was not for him, Abdul Hamid, 
to tremble or to escape from the task laid upon him by provi- 
dence. Years before, when he w^as still a young man, he had 
accompanied his uncle on the famous European tour, in the 
course of which Abdul Aziz visited London and was ban- 
queted by the Lord j\Iayor. In those days it was noted that 
Abdul Hamid was of a very shy and retiring disposition. It 
was reported that when he was in the gardens at Bucking- 
ham Palace he would always slink behind the bushes and 
conceal himself if he saw anyone approaching. By consti- 
tution he was not self-assertive, and, like Hamlet, he re- 
garded it as a cursed spite that he was told off to put to right 
times so cruelly out of joint. But, unlike Hamlet, Abdul 
Hamid is a Moslem, and a prince of the house which genera- 




KIIALII, Itll AA'r TASIIA, THE MOW GUAND VIZIIOR. ON HIS WAY 
TO TAKE UV HIS POST. 



ST0R7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 49 

tion after generation produced warriors and statesmen who 
\vere the terror of Christendom and the object of the envious 
admiration of the Eastern world. Hence he did not hesi- 
tate, w-hen the call came, to fairly shoulder his burden and to 
undertake the task of saving the empire with qualifications 
almost as scanty as those of Tommy Atkins for commanding 
an army corps. 

MIDHAT AND HIS COXSTITUTIOX. 

When he became Sultan, IMidhat had conceived the idea 
of throwing dust in the eyes of Europe by proclaiming a 
constitution. The Sultan assented to it as he would prob- 
ably have assented to any other expedient wdiich the Grand 
Vizier proposed at that time. But he never liked it, and took 
the first opportunity of dissolving the Parliament and put- 
tmg the constitution on the shelf. Parliaments indeed were 
not in his line. The House of Othman has many virtues, 
but those of constitutional kingship were not of them. The 
founder of the dynasty and all his most famous descendants 
had been men of personal initiative. They not only reigned, 
but ruled. They first carved out their realms for themselves 
with their ow^n scimiters, and then governed it by their ow^n 
autocratic, theocratic w-ill. To x\bdul Hamid, w^ho believed 
only in two things — in God and in his house — the very 
idea of a parliament or of any limitation on the sovereign 
power of the Sultan partook of the nature of a blasphemy. 
Not by such means w-ould Allah deliver the faithful. Abdul 
Hamid would stand in the ancient ways, walk by the ancient 
lis^ht, and trust in the God of his fathers to deliver him from 



50 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

the perils that encompassed him round about. For a time, 
in deference to Midhat, he tolerated the theatricality of the 
constitution, hoping that it might delude the infidel and de- 
liver Turkey from war. But when it failed, and the infidel 
would not be deluded, and the Russian armies crossed the 
Danube and invaded Armenia, then the time for such fooHng 
was past. Midhat was banished to Arabia, where he shortly 
afterward died, the parliament was dissolved, and the con- 
stitution vanished in thin air. 

THE ONE MAN POWDER. 

Henceforth the Sultan was to be the Sultan. And for 
nearly twenty years Abdul Hamid has been the Sultan and 
no mistake. Believing in no one but himself, he trusted no 
one but himself. Surrounded by men who had betrayed his 
uncle and his brother, living in an atmosphere malarious 
with corruption and saturated with intrigue, he early de- 
cided to trust no one, and to govern single-handed. And 
hopeless though the enterprise appeared, Abdul Hamid may 
at least claim that whatever may be said in criticism of his 
poHcy, it has at least achieved one great and indisputable 
success. It has enabled him to survive. And that is more 
than most people believed possible. Not only has he sur- 
vived for twenty years, but he has, until quite recently, been 
regarded as one of the ablest and most successful rulers of 
our time. 

The worst enemy of Abdul Hamid cannot deny that he is 
one of the most industrious of sovereigns. He toils early 



iiTORY OF TURKEY AND ARMEKIA. 51 

and late, seventeen and eighteen hours a day. Neither can 
it be imputed to him that he has not always labored for what 
he believed to be the real interest of the great trust which 
Allah has committed to his hands. He has worked like a 
galley slave in the peopled solitude of his palace. An im- 
perial convict sentenced to hard labor for life, witli constant 
liability to capital punishment, he has scorned delights and 
lived laborious days. He is not a genius, but he has held his 
own; not a hero, but he has borne the heat and burden of a 
long and toilsome day without complaining, and if he were 
gathered to his fathers tomorrow, he would have a record of 
which, when due allowance is made for his environment, no 
Sultan of his line need be ashamed. 

COURAGE WITH SELF-RELIANCE. 

It is the fashion nowadays to denounce Abdul Hamid as 
an abject coward. Cowardice has never been a note of the 
House of Othman. The breed is brave by heredity, and 
Abdul Hamid has given enough proof of his courage to 
show that he belongs to the imperial line. Almost immedi- 
ately after his accession, he had to face the Russian invasion. 
On both eastern and western frontiers burst the storm of 
Russian war. His arsenals were almost empty; his treasury 
was bankrupt. Even the rifles for his legions had to be 
bought in hot haste across the Atlantic. Of his pashas, 
some of the most highly placed were believed to be in Rus- 
sian pay. There was no one in camp or cabinet who was of 
proved genius and who could command the confidence 



52 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

either of his sovereign or of Europe. Among the great 
Powers there was not one which could be reUed upon for a 
cartridge or a sou. England, which in olden days had been 
the sworn ally of his predecessors, had taken offense about 
the suppression of the Bulgarian insurrection, an inscrutable 
piece of squeamishness on her part which Abdul Hamid to 
this day finds impossible to understand. As if the Ottoman 
Empire could exist without such suppression of rebellions! 
For the Turk without atrocities is as the leopard without his 
spots, and a sudden qualm of conscience as to the existence 
of spots cannot be understood by the leopard with whom we 
had been in alHance, spots and all, for more than the lifetime 
of a generation. France, prostrate aftei the German con- 
quest, was useless. Abdul Hamid had to depend on himself 
alone, as his ancestors had done before him — on himself, on 
the swords of the faithful, and on Allah, the all-powerful, who 
at the eleventh hour might make bare his arm and over- 
whelm the hosts of the infidel. 

THE DEFENSE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

So argued the forlorn Sultan, and without more ado he set 
himself to beat back the tide of Russian war. The terrible 
year that followed added its deep impress to those of the 
tragedies which had preceded it. The heroic defense of 
Plevna by Osman Pasha was a solitary gleam of light amidst 
the ever-deepening gloom of military defeat. Alike in Eu- 
rope and in Asia, the crusading Russians pressed slowly but 
steadily onward. Kars fell in Armenia. Plevna at last sur- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA, 55 

rendered in Europe, and then the Russian army, Hke a long 
dammed-up flood, surged irresistibly over the Balkans, and 
rushed foaming up to the very gates of Stamboul. Then it 
was that the Sultan showed that he possessed some of the 
old military instincts and the fighting spirit of his race. Panic 
reigned at the Porte, and the pashas, appalled by the sudden 
collapse of their armies, were counseling a hasty retreat to 
Broussa, on the other side of the Sea of Marmora. Abdul 
Hamid, calm and undismayed, concentrated all his energies 
upon the preparations for the defense of Constantinople. 
Mouktar Pasha was placed in command of the lines, behind 
which the wreck of the Ottoman armies was mustered for a 
last stand. 

HE VETOES THE FLIGHT TO BROUSSA. 

While still absorbed in the preparations for the defense of 
his capital against the Russians, Abdul Hamid was suddenly 
startled by an intimation that the British fleet, which all the 
autumn had lain sullenly vigilant in Besika bay, was about 
to force the passage of the Dardenelles. Orders were given 
to the forts to resist the naval invasion, and the gunners in 
the forts that command the Straits made ready to try con- 
clusions with Admiral Hornby's ironclads. At the last mo- 
ment, however, the ships were allowed to pass. 

Lord Beaconsfield undoubtedly intended the advance of 
the fleet to be a demonstation against the Russians. But it 
so happened that it created more consternation among the 
Turks, who seemed to feel themselves suddenly assailed in 
front and rear l^y a fresh enemy. It was just about the time 



56 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

when the British fleet had forced the Dardenelles and an- 
chored at Prince's Islands, within a day's steaming of Stam- 
boul, that a council was held in the capital to consider the 
Grand Vizier's proposal for an immediate retreat to Asia. 
The assembly of ministers and pashas was numerous and in- 
fluential. The prevailing opinion was that as the capital lay 
now between the Russians at San Stefano and the British 
fleet at Prince's Islands, nothing remained but flight into 
Asia. Then it was found that the Sultan showed himself a 
true descendant of Othman. Confronted by the craven 
crew of his own council, urging instant flight, Abdul Hamid 
calmly, but resolutely, refused to abandon the capital. Come 
what might, he would remain in Constantinople, and share 
the fate of the city that for four hundred years had been the 
throne of his dynasty. The word of the Suhan prevailed. 
The flight to Broussa was countermanded, and Abdul Ha- 
mid, amid his craven councillors, kept the Crescent above 
the Cross on the great cathedral of St. Sophia. 

AND SAVES THE TURKISH FLEET. 

Nor was this the only trial of his nerve. When the nego- 
tiations were going on between General Ignatieff and the 
Turkish plenipotentiaries at San Stefano, the Russians de- 
manded as one of the prizes of war the whole Turkish fleet. 
Achmet, Vefyk and Safvet Pashas, the strongest members 
of the ministry, urged compliance with the Russian de- 
mands. Turkey, they held, was powerless to resist. To re- 
fuse the Russian terms would be to renew the war. If the 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 57 

war was renewed the Cossacks would canter almost unop- 
posed to the palace of the Sultan, and the Ottoman Empire 
would not survive the capture of its capital. But here again 
the indomitable spirit of Abdul Hamid burst out. "Never," 
he exclaimed — "never," and with his own hand he wrote a 
letter to the Grand Duke Nicholas, declaring it was impos- 
sible to give up the fleet. He added, with an emphasis un- 
usual to him, that he would prefer to see the vessels blown 
up with himself on board rather than that they should fall 
into the hands of Russia. This might be bluff, but it was 
bluff of the supreme sort, the bluff of a monarch on the edge 
of the abyss, and above all it was bluff that succeeded. The 
Russians waved their demand: the Turkish fleet, Hke the 
Turkish capital, was saved by the Sultan, and the Sultan 
alone. 

it is enough to recall these two severe crises to understand 
how it is that the Sultan feels that it is he and no other, he, 
the Commander of the Faithful, to whom Allah has intrusted 
the responsibility of government. And so it has come to pass 
that ever since that time Abdul Hamid has insisted upon 
governing himself alone. In small things, as in great, in 
the appointment of a policeman in Erzeroum, or in the regu- 
lation of a theatre in Stamboul, equally as in the great affairs 
of State, the Sultan is supreme. He alone must order every- 
thing, sanction everything, superintend everything. As in 
the eyes of Allah there is nothing great or nothing small, but 
all things are of equal importance, so it is with the chosen of 
Allah who reigns and rules at Stamboul. 



58 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

III. WHAT HE HAS DONE OF GOOD. 

What has Abdul Hamid done for the empire over which 
he reigns? First and foremost, he has kept it in existence 
for twenty years. He has survived war, insurrection, trea- 
son, attempted assassination, bankruptcy. And that in it- 
self is no mean achievement. There seemed but a forlorn 
hope that he would succeed. But he has succeeded — so far 
at least as a man may be said to succeed who succeeds in 
evading the continual menace of annihilation. 

HIS FOREIGN POLICY. 

Secondly, he has, on the whole, been more reasonable and 
practical in his deaHngs with the Powers than he might have 
been. He was slow to give up Dulcigno to Montenegro and 
Epirus to Greece. His resolution needed to be quickened 
by a naval demonstration in the Adriatic and a threatened 
descent on the custom-houses of Smyrna; but in the end he 
gave way. In his dealings with Bulgaria he was more reas- 
onable than anyone anticipated. When Eastern Roumelia 
tore up the Berhn Treaty and adjoined herself to the princi- 
pality of Bulgaria, the Sultan would have been within his 
treaty rights, and he would probably have had, to say the 
least, no opposition from Russia, if he had invaded the re- 
bellious province and re-established his authority at Philip- 
popolis. But he refrained from interfering, and as the net 
result of twenty years' diplomacy he is probably on better 
terms with the Bulgarians than are the Russians, to whom 
they owe their emancipation. Thirdly, he has not done any- 



8T0RY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 61 

thing like the mischief he might have done in Egypt. He 
might have comphcated things terribly if he had accepted our 
proposal for a joint occupation. He refused, and although 
he may have been regretting it ever since, he has in reahty 
contributed mightily to establish EngHsh authority in Cairo. 
Rumor says that he encouraged Arabi to revolt. If so, we 
owe him only one more good turn. For if Arabi had not 
revolted, the British redcoat would never have been estab- 
lished in the barracks at Cairo. Fourthly, he has had to face 
a very dangerous revolt in Arabia. He quelled it by a policy 
of concession, which warded off a serious peril to the empire 
and gave to the Arabs securities against oppression. 

RESTORATION OF FINANCES AND ARMY REFORM. 

Fifthly, he estabHshed an International Commission for the 
payment of the interest on the debt. This required consid- 
erable nerve. He had seen in Egypt what international 
commissions came to. He naturally shrank from establish- 
ing an imperium in imperio at his own door. But when con- 
vinced that it was necessary, he bowed to the will of Allah, 
and was rewarded for his self-sacrifice by the re-estabhsh- 
ment of the credit of the empire in the stock exchanges of 
Europe. When he came to the throne, Turkey was bank- 
rupt. Her last loan had been floated at 12 per cent. Today 
the treasury, although not overflowing, is able to meet its ob- 
ligations, and with such punctuality and dispatch as to enable 
a Turkish loan to be floated at 5 per cent. Sixthly, he has 
done a great deal for the improvement of the discipline and 



02 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

the equipment of the army. He placed it imder German di- 
rection, and, according to Captain Norman, who recently 
wrote on the subject in the United Service Magazine, he has 
done a great deal toward making it a valuable fighting force, 
lie has replenished the batteries of artillery, provided his 
troops with magazine rifles, and can now, it is said, put 
500,000 men into the field. 

EDUCATION AND ART. 

Seventhly, Abdul Hamid has shown a praiseworthy appre- 
ciation of the importance of education. When the Russians 
were in full march upon Adrianople, he was busily engaged 
in founding the Mulkieh school, a preparatory college for 
che civil service. After the war was over he founded a school 
of law at the capital. Many other special schools have been 
founded by him, and more than 2000 elementary schools, at- 
tended by 100,000 scholars, have been opened since he as- 
cended the throne. Eighthly, Abdul Hamid deserves credit 
for his interest in the education of women. He has taken a 
notable step in advance by estabHshing various girls' schools 
in Constantinople and other towais. Ninthly, Abdul Hamid 
has taken a new departure in bestowing some attention on 
art. There is more treasure-trove within his empire than 
exists elsewhere on the world's surface. But hitherto sultans 
have concerned themselves as much with the priceless re- 
mains of Greek art as an Ashantee concerns himself about 
the higher mathematics. Abdul Hamid has broken with 
this barbarous tradition. Mr. Shaw Lefevre, who visited 
Turkey in 1890, says: 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 63 

For the first time the interesting contents of his treasury 
have been arranged, and, under special permits, are open to 
inspection. He has also established a museum of antiqui- 
ties, under the care of Hamdi Bey, a very competent anti- 
quarian, a Moslem by religion, but the son of a Greek who 
was stolen as a boy from Scio. There has been a recent find 
of three splendid sarcophagi at Sidon, one of which is be- 
lieved to have contained the remains either of Alexander or 
one Of his generals ; it has bas-reliefs of the very best period 
of Grecian art — equal in merit, in the opmion of many, to the 
Elgin marbles, and far more perfect in preservation. This 
alone makes the fortunes of the museum, and must attract 
every sculptor in Europe. He has formed a school of art. 



ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 

Tenthly, he has busied himself very much about the reor- 
ganization of the judicial administration. As to the value 
of this I am skeptical. But it is probable that the Sultan 
means to do the best he can. He has certainly taken no end 
of trouble about it. According to Hakki Bey, the reign of 
the Sultan has witnessed the most effective improvements in 
this respect. The reorganization of provincial tribunals, 
the nomination of procurators and advocates-general, the 
establishment of a regular system of advancement for judges, 
and a firm guarantee insuring their trustworthiness and im- 
partiality, the institution of criminal and civil procedures, 
are samples of this reforming policy applied to the adminis- 
tration of justice, besides the creation of a law school des- 
tined to furnish the department of justice with able and well- 
instructed functionaries. The reorganization of the police 
took place during this reign, which has witnessed so many 
acts for the welfare of the Ottoman people. The ancient con- 



64 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

fusion between the duties of the poHce, gendarmerie and de- 
partment of penal jurisdiction ceased, and the gendarmerie as 
an armed force being attached to the War Department, the 
ministry of poHce remained with its essential attributes with 
regard to public safety. 

Eleventhly, he has paid some attention to the construction 
of railways, the making of roads, and the supply of the neces- 
sary appliances of civilization to the cities of his empire. It 
is true that all these are but mere fragmentary trifles. Still, 
such as they are, they must be taken into account. 

SISYPHUS ON THE BOSPHORUS. 

Abdul Hamid has at least maintained his empire in peace. 
He might so easily have involved it in war. He has remained 
proof against all temptations of a warlike nature. He was 
not responsible for the Russian war. He inherited it, and he 
did the best he could. Since then he has succeeded in avoid- 
ing all armed collision with his neighbors, and has devoted 
his whole energies to what he regards as the true welfare of 
his people. Arminius Vambery, who recently paid a visit to 
the Sultan, bears emphatic testimony to the zeal with which 
he labors in the public service. He says : 

The Sultan has got hardly the time to undertake a walk in 
his garden; how could he allow to himself the luxury of a lon- 
ger holiday? To Sultan Abdul Hamid the throne is not at all a 
resting-place, and, having the honor to be his guest a few 
weeks ago, I can state from what I see that there has never 
been an Asiatic prince who devoted all his energies to the 
welfare of his country like the present ruler of Turkey. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 67 

IV. WHAT HE HAS DONE OF ILL. 

If these be the good deeds of Abdul Hamid, what are his 
evil deeds? From the point of view of the House of Othman 
his evil deeds are two, neither of which count for much with 
his most acrimonious critics, and both of which can be ex- 
plained and excused as the natural result of the circum- 
stances under which he came to the throne. 

HIS NEGLECT OP THE FLEET. 

First and foremost, and worst of all, he has neglected the 
fleet. He imperiled his empire in order to prevent it passing 
into the hands of the Russians. He has allowed it to perish 
of red rust and decay. The ironclads are still anchored in 
the Bosphorus, but- they can neither fight nor steam. When 
the Kiel canal was opened and the warships of all nations 
were assembled in honor of the new international highway, 
the Sultan found that in all his navy there was only one iron- 
clad whose boilers could be trusted to hold out for so long a 
voyage as that from Constantinople to Kiel and back. As 
the result of this neglect of the navy, his capital is today at the 
mercy of the Czar. The Russian Black Sea fleet could any 
night force the entrance to the Bosphorus, and place Con- 
stantinople under the fire of their guns. Constantinople is 
now to all intents and purposes the fief of Russia. The Sul- 
tan, as the Russians say, is the Czar's keeper of the back door 
of the Russian Empire. The Sultan has to pay Russia for 
seventy years to come a tribute of £350,000 per annum. 
Whenever he fails to pay up, Russia can levy execution. 



68 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Even Greece is able nowadays to hold her own against the 
once puissant Ottoman. Turkey, once one of the greatest 
of sea powers, has now ceased to be a powder at all, even in 
her own waters. To allow the fleet to moulder down in rusty 
ruin, that is the worst offense to be alleged against the Sultan 
from the point of view of an Ottoman. 

PARALYSIS FROM OVERCENTRALIZATION. 

The second great fault of Abdul Hamid has been the 
paralysis of his administration due to the congested centrali- 
zation of his empire. As he persists in doing everything 
himself, things don't get done. There is a vast accumulation 
of arrears of work always before him. It used to be said of 
our Lords of the Admiralty that they were kept so busy sign- 
ing papers all day they had no time left in which to think of 
the fleet at all. So it is with the Sultan. Mr. Shaw Lefevre 
says : 

There is no detail of administration of his government so 
small or trivial that it does not come before him personally 
for his approval and signature. The British Ambassador, 
as an illustration of this, told me that he could not get his 
steam launch repaired in the Turkish dock-yard, at his own 
expense, without the matter going before the Sultan for his 
approval. Another ex-ambassador said that in an interview 
at the palace the Sultan complained of overwork, and 
pointed to a great heap of papers on his table on which his 
decision was required. The ambassador, glancing his eye 
at the papers, observed that the first of them consisted of 
proposed regulations for a cafe chantant in Pera. 

The result is paralysis, nothing is attended to in the right 
time, and everything gets out of joint. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 69 

CIVILIZATION TOO COMPLEX FOR THE SULTAN. 

It is easy to see how this has arisen ; it is even easier to see 
how it must work out. The Sultan, beHeving only in him- 
self, will do everything himself. He and no other is the 
chosen of God. He therefore, and no other, must decide 
everything; sign everything. He is the delegate of Omnipo- 
tence, without permission to redelegate his supreme power. 
This was possible when sultans had little or nothing to do in 
the government of the provinces which they conquered. In 
the primitive barbarism of the Ottoman there was little 
trouble taken about the civic government. The cadi sat 
under the palm tree administering justice; the Sultan lived 
in his tent in the midst of his soldiers, leading them on to 
battle. Bajazet knew nothing of the endless minutiae of ad- 
ministrative details which harass Abdul Hamid. Amurath 
did not concern himself with regulating cafe chantants. A 
multiplex civilization, with innumerable wants, has invaded 
the primitive Ottoman State, and the Sultan who tries to 
deal with it single-handed is about as helpless as the baggage 
master of Julius Caesar would have been if he had been sud- 
denly called upon to handle with his old ox-carts the goods 
traffic of the London and Northwestern Railway. 

HIS INTERVIEW WITH MR. HEWITT. 

The Sultan w^ould be omnipotent, but he is not omniscient ; 
and it is impossible, imprisoned in the Yildiz Kiosk, to know 
what is going own in his distant provinces. Mr. Hewitt, 
one time mavor of New York, told me of an interesting con- 



7@ STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

versation which he once had with Abdul Hamid at Con- 
stantinople. Mr. Hewitt, who is a shrewd and observant 
American, had been much impressed during his travels in 
Asia Minor by seeing a peasant cut down a fine date tree 
that grew at his door, because he was unable to pay the taxes. 
He was driven permanently to impoverish himself in order 
to escape a levy which he had not means to meet. When he 
returned to Constantinople he told the Sultan what he had 
seen, and laid great stress upon the folly of killing the goose 
which laid the golden eggs. Abdul Hamid was most sym- 
pathetic, thanked him cordinally, and dismissed the official 
responsible for collecting the taxes in that particular district. 
But he lamented the impossibility of keeping an eye on all 
parts of his empire, and he begged Mr. Hewitt, with an effu- 
siveness that rather touched the New Yorker, to write to 
him whenever he saw anything or heard of anything which 
he, the Sultan ought to know. 

I rallied Mr. Hewitt for not embracing this opportunity 
of becoming the eyes and ears of the Sultan, for he had not 
availed himself of the advantage. Mr. Hewitt was, however, 
much impressed with the sincerity of the Sultan's anxiety to 
do right, and the bitter sense of impotence under which he 
labored. 

THE POVERTY OF THE PEASANTS. 

The financial condition of the empire is much improved 
from the point of view of the stock exchange. But there is 
reason to fear that the improvement in Ottoman credit has 
been achieved by levying taxes with a severity which has 




INTKRIOR OF MOSUL i; ■ 'I' ST. SOPHIA, CONSTANT I NO ri.S. 



STORY OF TURRET AND ARMENIA. 7% 

dried up the sources of the prosperity of the peasants. Mr. 
Caillard, the EngHsh member of the International Commis- 
sion of the PubHc Debt, reported as long ago as 1889 that 
the condition of things in the provinces was growing des- 
perate. 

The peasant in the interior has reduced his wants to their 
simplest expression, and signs are to hand which show him 
to be less and less able to purchase the few necessaries he re- 
quires. For instance, a few years ago in any decent peasant 
household copper cooking utensils were to be seen. Now 
they are scarcely to be found, and they have been sold to 
meet the pressing needs of the moment. Their place has 
been taken by clay utensils, and, in the case of the more 
affluent, by iron. The peasant's . chief expenses lie in his 
women-folk, who require print stuffs for their dresses and 
linen for their underclothing; but of these he gets as little as 
possible, since, as often as not, he cannot pay for them. This 
smallness of margin is one of the reasons why the amount of 
importations increases so slowly. The peasant hardly ever 
pays for his purchases in cash; w^hat Httle he has goes in 
taxes. He efifects his purchases by barter. Another signi- 
ficant sign is the increase of brigandage which has taken 
place. New bands of brigands are continually springing up ; 
reports from the interior are ever bringing to our knowledge 
some fresh acts of violent robbery. This simply means that 
men desperately poor, and refusing to starve, take to brig- 
andage as a means of living. 

THE WEALTH OF THE SULTAN. 

At the same time the peasants are growing poor, the Sul- 
tan is growing rich. He has by one means and another ac- 
quired immense estates. According to an American anti- 
quarian who has spent some years in Bagdad and Syria: 

More than half of the landed property of the province of 
Bagdad has passed into the hand of the Sultan, and he has 



74 ST0R7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

possessed himself of the whole of the valley of the Jordan. 
One effect of this was that the province no longer paid its way 
in the sense of returning a surplus income to the treasury, 
as the Sultan's land and those cultivating it were not sub- 
ject to taxation. 

V. THE SULTAN AT HOME. 

No one knows really how the Sultan lives. A recent visi- 
tor at Yildiz received three different accounts of how he 
spends his day from three dififerent pashas, each of whom 
ought to have been in a position to know the truth. What is 
known is that Abdul Hamid lives very simply in the compar- 
ative retirement of the Yildiz Kiosk. Frances Elliott, in her 
"Diary of an Idle Woman in Constantinople," gives an ac- 
count of his daily Hfe, which is probably as authentic as any 
that can be discovered in the press of Europe: 

YILDIZ KIOSK. 

Abdul Hamid is a nervous man. Even since the tragic 
death of his uncle he has obstinately refused to move from 
the small kiosk or palazzetto called Yildiz, about three miles 
trom the city, on the European range of hills bordering the 
Bosphorus. The way to Yildiz Hes through the draggle- 
tailed streets of Pera, into comparative country. After go- 
ing up and down hill at a breakneck gallop, the outline of a 
palace kiosk, modern and small, reveals itself rising out of a 
cincture of dark groves. This is Yildiz Kiosk, where lives 
the Commander of the Faithful. It is not a palace at all, but 
originally was a summer villa. The park, which is well 
wooded, is spacious, with grassy slopes, diversified with 
other kiosks, also shaded with groves, descending to a quay 
on the Bosphorus. It has most charming views over land 
and sea, Europe and Asia. Near at hand is the broad chan- 
nel of the deep blue Bosphorus, with its frieze of white pal- 



STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 75 

aces, steamers, caiques and vessels, with sails set, gliding by 
every instant. 

HIS DAILY LIFE. 

No Sultan has mounted the throne of Mohammed II more 
blameless in private life or endowed w4th more sentiments of 
general humanity. The hideous custom of the murder of 
infant nephews has ceased under his reign. He is modest 
in the requirements of his harem. Like the Pope, the Sul- 
tan eats alone, seated near a window overlooking the Bos- 
phorus, except on special occasions when he receives with 
the most finished courtesy royal visitors, ambassadors and 
their waves, every European luxury being understood and 
served upon the board. Habitually he drinks only water, 
brought to the palace in casks under special precautions. 
His food is extremely plain, consisting chiefly of vegetables, 
served in silver saucepans, presented to him at table sealed. 
No one works harder than Hamid. He takes but few hours 
of sleep, and sometimes passes the entire night, pen in hand, 
signing every document himself, from the appointment of a 
governor to the lowest officer at the palace. 



FROM DAWN TO SUNSET. 

Like most Orientals, he is an early riser. After the 
prayers and ablutions enjoined by his reHgion — and he is 
eminently a pious Turk — he drinks a cup of coffee, and then 
begins smoking cigarettes, which (as was the case with 
Louis Napoleon) he continues all day. At lo A. M. he re- 
ceives the reports of his ministers, works alone or with his 
secretaries till i, when he eats; then he drives in the grounds 
or floats in a gilded caique on a lake for a couple of hours, 
never leaving the park of Yildiz except to go to the mosque, 
after which he returns to preside at the Council of State, or 
to receive ambassadors or ministers. His dinner is at sunset, 
when the national pillaf of rice and sw^eets are served with 
sherbet and ices. After this he betakes himself to the Se- 
laulek to receive pashas and generals of high rank, such as 



76 ST0B7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Osman Ghazi, or oftener he disappears into the harem to 
pass the evening hours with wives, mother and children. 
Music is his deHght, and in private he himself takes his place 
at the piano. 

Turk and Ottoman to the backbone, he is convinced that 
his soldiers are the best in the world, the most enduring and 
amenable to discipHne. In speech he is a purist, speaking 
well in a slow monotonous voice, but sometimes the flood of 
expression is let loose, and he is said to burst into something 
like eloquence. The moUahs and dervishes find in him a 
ready listener and a liberal protector; indeed, he is liberal, 
and takes pleasure in rewarding those who serve him well. 
His gifts to European ladies are especially magnificent in 
gems and pearls, of which he has drawersful in the old se- 
raglio. 

AT THE SELAULEK. 

It is only on Friday, when the Sultan goes to the mosque, 

that he ever leaves the shelter of the park. All the troops 

are turned out, the ministers are in attendance, an immense 

crowd gathers to catch a glimpse of the Shadow of God. A 

newspaper correspondent thus describes the scene when the 

Sultan appears : 

The silence suddenly becomes absolute as the Sultan 
leaves the apartments, and then, as he appears, it is simply 
broken by the equivalent to a Turkish "hurrah" from the 
Marine Guard, given from hundreds of throats as with one 
voice, in three or four ringing syllables. At a gentle trot 
the open barouche slips past. On the right sits a small 
bowed figure, with eyes cast down and hands clasped on his 
knees. The beard is a dusky gray and the skin sallow and 
earthy. The Sultan looks ten years more than his age, one 
might say ten years older almost than he did in 1892. On 
his left is Ghazi Osman Pasha, who is growing old by the 
side of his great master. Under the windows, filled with 
foreign spectators, amidst a curious hush, under the fire of 
«"very eye, passes the carriage with its terrible freight, the 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 79 

inscrutable will on which depend the lives of millions. As 
Abdul Hamid Khan II is assisted up the steps of the mosque, 
the shrill cry of the muezzin cleaves the blue stillness as he 
stands out a mere speck on the minaret rail against the sky. 

Then the doors close and the act is over. The curtain 
figuratively falls, and tongues are loosed. An American 
remarks that the Sultan looks so like the late Mr. Jay Gould 
that if the latter could have been placed by the side of Gliazi 
Osman, as he then was, and were so to drive back, not one in 
the crowd would detect the difference. 

In half an hour he comes out again, enters a victoria, takes 

the reins of the two gray horses, and drives away at a walking 

pace. 

THE SULTAN AS HE LOOKS. 

Miss Elliott, when she saw him, remarked: 

The Sultan is the most wretched, pinched-up little sover- 
eign I ever saw. A most unhappy-looking man, of dark 
complexion, with a look of absolute terror in his large East- 
ern eyes. People say he is nervous, and no wonder, consid- 
ering the fate of his predecessor. Yet this is to be regretted, 
for if he could surmount these fears, his would be an agree- 
able and refined countenance, eminently Asiatic in type, and 
with a certain charm of expression. All I can say is that his 
eyes haunted me for days, as of one gazing at some unknown 
horror; so emaciated and unnatural is his appearance that 
were he a European we should pronounce him in a swift de- 
cline. I hear that his greatest friend and favorite is his phy- 
sician. And no wonder, for he must need his constant care, 
considering the life he leads. How all the fabled state of the 
Oriental potentate palls before such a lesson in royal misery! 
The poorest beggar in his dominions is happier than he! 

HIS DREAD OF ASSASSINATION. 

It is not surprising that Abdul Hamid should fear assassi- 
nation. Abdul Aziz \\^s so afraid of being poisoned that he 



80 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

lived chiefly on hard-boiled eggs. Abdul Hamid never stirs 

outside his park. He refused to accompany the German 

Emperor to Sophia. 

Some grand duchess whom he received at his court, on his 
complaining that his health was indifferent, advised him to 
take more exercise and change of air, and to drive about the 
country. On her departure, he is reported to have said: 
"What harm have I done that this woman should desire my 
death? Why does she advise me to run into such dangers ?'- 

ESPIONAGE UNIVERSAL. 

He lives, like Domitian, in constant suspicion of all around 
him; and all who surround him are believed to live in immi- 
nent peril of their lives, should their imperial master suspect 
they meditate designs against his life. He changes his body- 
guard every week, and never allows his ministers to go out 
of his palace without a written permission. Everywhere he 
has his spies — in the Ministry, in the harem, in the street. 
Brother can hardly speak to brother without one suspecting 
the other to be a spy. The Sultan lives in the midst of this 
atmosphere of suspicion. It is to him the breath of life. If 
the butler could but trust the cook, the Sultan's life might be 
taken in the night. He distrusts everyone. He once put 
Osman Pasha — Osman the Victorious, Osman the hero of 
Plevna — under arrest for three days, owing to a false report 
that he had saluted Reschad, heir apparent to the throne. 
No one is to be anybody but Abdul Hamid. 

The press is gagged. Ministers are reduced to the posi- 
tion of mere puppets. If anyone distinguishes himself in 
any way, his very distinction is his doom. He is banished. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 81 

lest the discontented should rally round him. No one must 
be conspicuous. Everyone must be reduced to the univer- 
sal dead-level of abject m.ediocrity. 

THE TELEGRAM TO LORD SALISBURY. 

But while he thus silences criticism within his dominions, 
he is tremblingly alive to the comments of the press outside 
Turkey. He is as sensitive as Lord Rosebery was to the 
printed criticism of anonymous and insignificant journalists. 
Instead of letting the scribblers of Little Pedlington rave to 
the desert air, he has their leaders carefully translated for his 
special benefit. The world was astonished, and not a little 
amused, by the Sultan's pathetic appeal to Lord Salisbury. 
The Sultan said he had been very much pained by Lord Sal- 
isbury's increduhty, and that he was resolved to execute 
what he had undertaken. "I have already told my ministers 
so. The only reason why Lord Salisbury should thus throw 
doubt upon my good intentions must be the intrigues of cer- 
tain persons here, or else false statements have been made to 
cause such opinion." After some intermediate observations 
which Lord Salisbury did not quote (at the Brighton 
meeting), where he read this historic document, the 
message went on: "I repeat, I will execute the re- 
formes. I will take the paper containing them, place it be- 
fore me, and see myself that every article is put in force. 
This is my earnest determination, and I give him my word of 
honor. I wish Lord Salisbury to know this, and 1 beg and 
desire that his lordship, having confidence in these declara- 



82 8T0R7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

tions, will make another speech by virtue of the friendly feel- 
ing and disposition he has for me and for my country. I 
shall await the result of this message with the greatest anx- 
iety/' So ran the famous message from xA.bdul Hamid to 
Lord Salisbury — a significant indication of the decadence of 
the Sultanate. Imagine the descendant of the fierce war- 
rior who swore he would feed his horse with oats on the altar 
of St. Peters in Rome, telegraphing to the Prime Minister 
of the infidels, begging him to "make another speech by 
virtue of the friendly feehng and disposition he has for me 
and for my country !'' 

THE STORY OF A "P. M. G." TELEGRAM. 

Mr. Cust, the brilhant and successful editor of the Pall 
Mall Gazette, who visited the Sultan this year, told me a 
curious story of his own experience, which better than any- 
thing else illustrates the present position of affairs at Yildiz. 
Mr. Cust saw a good deal of the Sultan, and at one of his in- 
terviews Abdul Hamid informed him that it was his intention 
to carry out some reforms which the Powers had not even 
asked for. He was going to do this, he said, as a proof of his 
good will and his anxious desire to meet the wishes of the 
Powers. Mr. Cust, thinking that it might please the Sultan, 
decided to send a telegram to the Pall Mall Gazette embody- 
ing the substance of the Sultan's message. He drafted the 
telegram and sent it in to the telegraph ofBce. 

Next morning a mounted messenger galloped in with a 
message from the Sultan summoning Mr. Cust at once to 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 85 

Yildiz. When he arrived there he found the Sultan in deep 
cogitation over the telegram, which had not been dispatched 
pending the imperial pleasure. Would Mr. Cust consent to 
some alteration in the telegram? 'That depends," said Mr. 
Cust, "upon what the alteration is." 

So the Sultan and his ministers set to work to redraft the 
telegram. After a time it vv^as brought out. Would Mr. 
Cust object to this form? He glanced at it. The amended 
imperially edited message began somewhat like this: "An- 
other proof of the beneficent goodness of His Imperial Maj- 
esty is," etc. "Nonsense!" said Air. Cust; "it would only 
make the Sultan ridiculous to publish such a telegram in 
London." So the message went back to the Sultan. The 
poor man tried again; then came another draft. It was 
equally impossible. A third time his advisers labored over 
the redrafting of this telegram. A third time their efforts 
were abortive. At it they went again, until at last, after 
seven mortal hours of incessant lucubration, the message 
came out in a form which, although perfectly inane, was not 
positively ludicrous. All the comphments were dropped, 
and the announcement which was made of his good inten- 
tions in the original telegram was toned down to nothing. 
Mr. Cust, who had only written the telegram at first thinking 
it would please the Sultan, consented to dispatch the finally 
revised version, which represented the net result of seven 
hours' deliberation. So he took it to the telegraph office and 
thought no more about it. 

Next morning, however, came another messenger from 
the Sultan. A<rain he had to go to Yildiz, this time to learn 



86 ^TORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

that the Sultan had delayed the dispatch of the telegram in 
order that he might sleep upon it. He had slept upon it, and 
the result of his meditations was that he thought on the 
whole the telegram had better not be sent! Into the waste 
paper basket therefore it went, and there was an end of it. 

REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM. 

But what a picture we have here of the irresolute fumbler 
who occupies the throne of Mohammed! For these seven 
long hours the whole administrative machine of the Otto- 
man Em.pire was at a standstill, while Abdul Hamid and his 
Grand V^izier, with the aid of Osman the Victorious, and I 
know not how many pashas besides, concentrated their 
brains upon the momentous task of redrafting a trumpery 
telegram which was to be dispatched to the Pall Mall Ga- 
zette as a mere matter of courtesy to the Sultan! This is 
surely the ultimate of irrational centralization and imbecile 
vacillation. 

"THE DEVIL'S CHARIOT." 

The Sultan has not the gift of administrative perspective. 
He bothers himself about the veriest trifles, prohibiting bi- 
cycling in and near Constantinople as immoral and ''danger- 
ous to the State,'- and an officer of an Italian corvette was 
taken into custody for having been found riding a bicycle, 
or a "devil's chariot," as the Turks name it. No dictionary 
is allowed to circulate containing such words as evolution, 
equality, liberty, insurrection, as such words are likely to 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 87 

"excite the minds" of people. Again, theatrical pieces, such 
as '^Hamlet," ''Macbeth," Victor Hugo's "Le Roi s' Amuse" 
("Rigoletto") cannot be acted on any stage. ''Othello" is 
allowed, but in a mutilated form. 

Even the Bible must be expurgated to please his censors. 
The passages which are particularly objected to are those 
relating to the restoration of the Jews to Palestine, and to 
the Kingdom of Christ. The phrases "Kingdom of Heav- 
en," "of God," or "of Christ" must be omitted. The words 
"Jew" and "Hebrew" must be left out. The words "Ac- 
cording to the law of the Jews" cannot be admitted, because 
the Jews have no laws separate from that of other rayahs in 
the Ottoman Empire. The reference to the "Queen of the 
South," contained in Matthews xii, 42, is for some reason 
ordered to be left out altogether. And all the time when 
these momentous trivialities are being discussed, whole 
provinces are being desolated, and the great empire is 
settling down to ruin. 

VI. WHAT IS TO BE DONE. 

The atrocities which have recently startled the world in 
Armenia are nothing new. I doubt whether they should be 
regarded as a count in the indictment against Abdul Hamid. 
He is simply doing as Turks always do, and always will do 
as long as the Ottoman Empire exists. It would be as ab- 
surd to complain of a dog for biting or of a cat for mewing as 
to arraign the Grand Turk for resorting to that which has 



88 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

been for centuries the recognized method of maintaining the 
State. 

"LET DOGS DELIGHT, ETC., FOR 'TIS THEIR NATTJRE TO." 

No one knows this better than the Rev. Canon MacCoU, 
who in his latest article expressly admits and asserts it in the 
following passages, which is as true as it is vivid and power- 
ful. After referring to the saturnalia of horrors reported 
from Asia, the Canon says: 

There is, however, nothing new in this exhibition of Turk- 
ish poHcy. These massacres of Christians are periodical in 
Turkey; and they are never the result of local fanaticism; 
they are invariably organized and ordered by the Sultan and 
his ministers, for the purpose of keeping down the Christian 
population. Abject cowardice has made this Sultan more 
recklessly ferocious than his predecessors; that is all. The 
policy is the same, having at one time Greece for its theatre ; 
then Syria; then Bulgaria and the Herzegovma; then Ar- 
menia. It is a deliberate system of pollarding the various 
Christian communities as each threatens to overtop its 
Mussulman neighbors in population and prosperity. 

THE SULTAN'S SHARE IN THE ATROCITIES. 

I am not wishing to defend the atrocities. They are damn- 
able enough in all conscience. Nor do I for a moment wish 
to imply that Abdul Hamid is not responsible for them. He 
is as responsible for them as a tiger is for its stripes and its 
carnivorous appetite. These things are of the essence of 
Turkish rule. Mr. MacColl believes that the Sultan is di- 
rectly responsible for the massacres. He says: 

In my pamphlet on "England's Responsibility Toward 
Armenia," and in an article in this month's Contemporary 




gate: to a palace;. 



INTERIOR OF mosque: OF ST. SOPHIA. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 91 

Review, I have proved, by an overwhelming mass of official 
evidence, that Abdul Hamid has been engaged for four years 
in carefully maturing his plans for the perpetration of the 
horrors which have lately roused the indignation of the civi- 
lized world. He it is who is responsible, not the Kurds and 
Turks, who have only been the instruments of his cruelty. 

Possibly in the inner arcanum of his own conscience I 
doubt whether Abdul Hamid would even desire to repel this 
accusation. Probably he feels more chagrined at the incom- 
pleteness of his work than grieved because of the blood 
already shed. 

TITE ARMING OF THE KURDS. 

There is Httle doubt but that in many cases the orders to 
kill emanated from the Sultan. But the worst sufferings 
inflicted upon the Armenians were due to the arming of the 
Kurds. Mr. Richard Davey, writing before the present out- 
break, said of the Hamedieh, as the Kurdish irregulars are 
named after the Sultan, their enrolment was one of the 
greatest mistakes ever made : 

The Sultan doubtless had in his mind the success of the 
Russian Emperor with his Cossack regiments, when he gave 
permission for these barbarians to be supplied with uniforms 
and arms. The only distinction they obtained in the war of 
1877 was for their blood-curdling atrocities on the poor 
wretches who fell into their hands, and their diabolical muti- 
lation of the dead. Their headquarters are at Melaigerd, on 
the Eastern Euphrates, and there are about thirty regiments 
of them registered in the area of the plateau, each regiment 
consisting of from 500 to 600 men. They will not, and pos- 
sibly cannot, accept discipline, and their natural savageness 
is rendered ten times more dreadful when they are provided 
with modern arms and ammunition and taught how to use 
them. 



92 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

THE ACTION OP THE TURKISH SOLDIERY. 

These gentry are responsible for much. But some of the 
later massacres were the work of the Turkish soldiers. The 
Times correspondent in Erzeroum, writing after the Arme- 
nians had been slaughtered in that city, gave a very vivid ac- 
count of the matter-of-fact way in which the massacre had 
been ordered and executed. He says : 

The following is a conversation I had with the Turkish 
soldier who was one of the three guarding our door after the 
affair: "Where were you when this thing commenced?" 

Answer — 'Tn the barracks, playing cards. We were all 
called out by a signal from the bugle and drawn up in Hne. 
Our ofBcer then said to us, 'Sharpen your swords; today you 
are to kill Armenians wherever you find them for six hours ; 
after that you are to stop, and the blood of any Armenian you 
kill after this is my blood; the Armenians have broken into 
the Serai.' At the given signal, which was just after noon,*' 
he said, "the troops started for the Serai. Vv'e wondered 
how the Armenians could get into the Serai. When we ar- 
rived there we did not find any Armenians with arms, and I 
saw only one shot fired at us by an Armenian, We were 
ordered to kill every Armenian we saw, just as it was at Sa- 
sun," continued tliis soldier, who had been at Sasun; "if we 
tried to save any Armenian friend, our commanding officer 
ordered us to kill him; we were to spare no one." Other 
soldiers told pretty mucli the same story. The soldiers evi- 
dently had no great relish for their horrible v/ork, but once 
begun they did it thoroughly and brutally. 

S. vS. Cox, late Minister to Turkey, in his "Diversions of a 
Diplomat," pubHshed about ten years ago, gives some inter- 
esting reminiscences of the Sultan. He describes his recep- 
tion and a State dinner : 

THE RECEPTION. 

The Sultan receives us, standing on a rug of camel-hair 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 93 

felt, covered with embroidered flowers in different colored 
silk braid of Turkish work. 

As we are ushered into the presence, we make three bows : 
one at the door on entering, the second half-way and the last 
when we stop, a few feet from his person. We do not bow 
as low as the Turkish Ministers, but we do our best. The 
Sultan is standing at the far end of the room, in front of a 
table. 

The Sultan is middle-sized and of the Turkish type. He 
wears a full black beard, is of dark complexion and has very 
expressive eyes. His forehead is large, indicative of intel- 
lectual power. He is very gracious in his manner, though 
at times seemingly a little embarrassed. He wears the fol- 
lowing decorations: The Grand Cordon of the Osmanli, 
which is a green scarf worn across the breast; the first class 
of the Medjidie, in diamonds; the Nichan Imtiaz, an order 
instituted by his grandfather, Sultan Mahmoud, and the 
Nichan Iftihar. The insignia and medals are inlaid with 
precious stones. The green sash or scarf is of a rich color 
and texture. No person was ever decorated in more gor- 
geous array, and yet in his bearing and demeanor he is unos- 
tentatious. Notwithstanding the prejudice of the Ottoman 
against images, his photograph has been permitted. 

There is an etiquette which Turkish officials observe in the 
Sultan's presence. It has been much modified by time, and 
since the Crimean war greatly modified, like other old habits 
here, especially as they affect strangers. On approaching 
the Sultan, the officials, when about ten yards distant, make 
a salaam. This consists in bending the body till the right 



M STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

hand touches the ground. The hand is then brought to the 
heart, the mouth, and then to the forehead. What does this 
mean? Its idea is, that you take the earth from the ground 
as a symbol of lowHness. Then you carry the hand to your 
heart and head. The hps approve your regard. After the 
first salaam, you advance five or six yards and repeat. If 
you are an ofBcial, again and again you repeat until you are 
a yard and one-half from the Sultan. Then a third salaam 
is made. Then the person stops. He crosses his hands on 
the lower part of his stomach. This is said to be a relic of 
Persian usage. It has a meaning. It is intended to show 
that the servant has no concealed weapon in his hand. These 
ol^.cials never address the Sultan. Every time he looks to- 
wards them they repeat the salaam. After much genuflexion 
they are asked what their business is. They tell their story, 
and bow lowly and bow out. 

A STATE DINNER. 

When we arrive at the gate of Yildiz, the Kavass dis- 
mounts. He is no longer wanted, and he retires to the lega- 
tion. The soldiers on guard escort us up the drive, and ihe 
coachman, conscious of the presence of royalty, lashes his 
horses into a gallop. 

''Are we late?" I ask, tremulously. 

"About five minutes,'' responds the dragoman. We 
breathe freely. 

In the gloaming of the evening I only notice that the gar- 
den wall is a mass of Bankshire roses and the palace a wilder- 



8T0RY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 97 

ness of lights. The carriage stops. We alight. We are 
met at the vestibule by a grand Pasha in uniform and decora- 
tions. We walk upon carpets, ascend and descend steps 
into the marble entrance, and there are invited to take of¥ 
our wraps. We are ushered into a small side room. In a 
few minutes the master of ceremonies leads the way to the 
upper salon. He is followed by the Ministers and the rest 
of the company. Each is presented in turn to the Sultan. 
We are in the presence of the Sultan. If I were to give the 
opinion of the female portion of the company, I should say 
that he has large, fine eyes and a most gracious manner. 
The latter is illustrated by his cordial shaking of the hand 
with all. On his motioning to the ladies, they are seated on 
the divan. He then calls up the three princes : his son, who 
is seventeen years old, and his two nephews. These youths 
wear military suits, epaulettes, spurs and swords. They are 
each presented in their turn. How the company is dis- 
posed, with the view to a movement towards the dining 
saloon and table, it is unnecessary to state ; except this, that 
the Sultan accompanies his guests to the door of the grand 
salon, with a parting salutation, and remarks that he will 
continue the reception after dinner. 

The table is a picture. It is wide and long, with a gor- 
geous display of flowers, fruits, light and crystal shades. We 
enter at the end of the room and are tendered our respective 
seats. Our little ministerial family are placed among the 
princes. One of the nephews, Tewfik, is about ten years of 
age. He is a meek, quiet, subdued-looking child. When 
the dinner begins, although they do not drink wine, there is 



98 .STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

much geniality. Meanwhile, the Sultan's band plays rare 
music from the adjoining room, and the dinner goes on very 
much like a French or Russian dinner. I find that the 
princes are anxious about geography. They inquire about 
Egypt. They ask about America. We explain much of 
the recondite history of Egypt, including incidental remarks 
about the mummies, temples and tombs. Although they 
only drink water, we drank their health, and they enjoy it. 
Asking after their amusements, we do not receive much in- 
formation. I imagine that the princes are more or less re- 
stricted by their exalted position. The menu is tempting. 
The wines are good. The service, in silver at first, and then 
in gold, winds up with the finest crystal for finger-bowls. 
Dainty little gold shells hold the ices. Ten servants, in gold- 
trimmed uniforms and fez caps, serve the table. 

The dinner is not tedious, for it is not long. The bon- 
bons are passed about, the princes being always first served. 
Each takes one and passes it to my wife, with a quaint cour- 
tesy. After arising from the table, we march down the line 
of Pashas, aides and servants, all of whom bow, after the 
Oriental method. Then, passing through a corridor, we 
enter a polished green and black-tiled coffee-room, which 
has a dais railed off at one end. How rare and beautiful are 
the Turkish carpets and divans here! How tempting for 
a siesta, after dinner! How exquisite the chairs and the 
malachite tables! 

After being seated, the dragoman surprises my wife and 
the company. He approaches her with a box. 

"I have something to show you, madam," he says. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 99 

''Yes," she responds. "It is lovely outside. What is in 
it?" 

He opens it, remarking: "Shall I put it on you?" 

"What do you mean?" she inquires. 

"I have the pleasure of decorating you, at the Sultan's 
wish, with the Grand Order of the Chefekat." 

Thereupon he throws the Cordon over her head, and, with 
the aid of the German i\mbassadress, who is familiar with 
the decorations, it is decorously arranged. It is a surprise 
as well as an honor, coming as it does almost within one 
year of our service with the American legation. It is a star 
m brown, gold and green enamel, with diamond brilliants. 
It has five points, and twenty-six diamonds on each point. 
Surely no wom.an of good training would refuse such a gift ! 
It is fastened upon the front of the corsage, and, with the 
Cordon, it serves as an ornament to the dress. The pashas, 
the aides and the of^cers make their felicitations on the 
happy event. 

x\fter the presentation of the decoration to my wife, on 
this occasion, and after other courtesies, the ladies enter the 
carriage. They are driven toward but not to the harem. 
They are not invited to see the domesticities. The gentle- 
men follow upon foot. The beautiful lights in the gardens 
and from the windows make the scene like one from the 
Arabian Nights. The plashing fountains and the fragrance 
of the air produce the impression of something magical and 
marvelous. 

Then we enter a grand salon, with a parquetes floor, cov- 
ered with rugs, divans, chairs and tables, where a rare 



100 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

library, a white porcelain stove and numerous secretaries 
fill the side walls, from which depend red satin hangings. 
Here the Sultan receives us again. A beautiful table occu- 
pies the centre. Upon it are some American photographs. 
It happened on that very morning that another box of Am- 
erican photographs was received through the Porte, and not 
through myself as Minister. His Majesty sits in an arm- 
chair at the head of this table, dressed, as usual, in his dark- 
blue frock coat, suit, sword and fez cap. His black whiskers 
and large eyes produce a picturesque effect. He seems 
more at ease than any of his company. He chats with each 
and all, and always on appropriate subjects, and with musi- 
cal, subdued tones and fluent language. Every sentence is 
received by the interpreter with a profound bow, carrying 
his righ^ hand from near the floor to his heart and head. The 
sentences are passed through our own dragoman to the min- 
isterial ear with equal grace. 

These courtesies ending, the violinist AVilhelmj is ushered 
in. He has a large forehead and the air of a man of genius. 
He makes a graceful bow at the door, and seems relieved 
when he reaches the piano stool, where an accomplished 
pasha awaits and afterwards accompanies him in some rare 
and rich music. The national air of Germany is given, on 
the rendering of which the Sultan and all of us rise. Then, 
as a tribute to Germany, or to the unseen goddess of ^leta- 
physics, he asks each of us to smoke. The ladies, of course, 
decline, but the American Minister is not in that mood. The 
Sultan lights his own cigarette from a silver match-box, and, 
pointing to it. says: 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 103 

"Tell my friend, Mr. Hewitt, that I keep his gift by me, as 
a pleasant souvenir." 

When we retire to the library, the Sultan shows his guests 
the elegant specimens of American art and scenery which he 
had received in the morning. He had selected a few from 
the new lot. He also shows me a letter in Turkish from his 
Minister, which informs him of the arrival of the package. 
He states that he has directed the Minister to telegraph the 
President his grateful regard and thanks for these interest- 
ing gifts. He also requests me to send a similar message. 

The tea is then served in gold cups and saucers. The 
music is concluded. Thanks are sent to the musician, along 
with a pretty decoration. Then the Sultan rises, takes little 
Tewfik, his nephew, by the hand, and leads him to the piano, 
saying, apologetically: 

"The boy will give us some music, although he has only 
learned by the ear." 

The quiet little prince plays a spirited march. It is a 
national air. Then he plays from "Norma." /Vfter that he 
leaves the piano and stands in his place meekly, till the Sul- 
tan indicates for him to sit. The Sultan kindly explains that 
he is a child of one of his brothers, who has died when 
Tewfik was but a few months old, and that he was educating 
him, as well as his other nephew, as companions to his son. 

The Sultan now arises. He will detain us no longer. It 
is etiquette at the palace to remain until the Sultan gives the 
signal to leave. This he generally does by a glance at his 
watch, saying: 

"I fear you will be late," or, "Perhaps I am detaining you," 



104 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

He shakes hands with the ladies first, and then the gentle- 
men, with their best grace, back out. The bouquets are dis- 
tributed to the ladies. A little remark of mine, which was 
caught as I left the room, caused the Sultan to recall the 
Minister and the dragoman. I had mentioned that our 
President was about to be married. He suggests to the 
dragoman to ask the Minister whether the Ottoman ruler 
could not in some way honor the expected bride of the 
President. 

As we retire, after many kindly greetings, we look in vain 
for lattice and curtain to indicate the harem. Every win- 
dow opens into a beautiful garden, and every garden is filled 
with flow^ers and sparkling fountains. It is a fairy scene ; but 
no houri. We enter our carriages at the park gate, take our 
venerable Kavass along, and, with a cavarly escort behind, 
we move toward Pera, and thus this Oriental entertainment 
is ended! 



STOBY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA, 105 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PEOPLE OF TURKEY— THEIR HOME-LIFE AND 
RELIGION. 

THE BIRTH OP A TURKISH CHILD.. 

As soon as a Turkish child is born, it is enveloped in a tiny 
chemise and Libarde, or quilted jacket of many colors, bound 
with a swathe; its limbs are pulled straight down, and then 
imprisoned in a number of quilted wrappers and tightly 
bandaged all over by another swathe, giving the unfortunate 
mummified being the appearance of a Bologna sausage. A 
red silk cap is placed on the head, ornamented with a pearl 
tassel, one or tw^o fine gold coins and a number of amulets 
and charms against the evil eye. 

These objects consist of a head of garlic, a piece of alum, 
a copy of one or two verses of the Koran plaited in little tri- 
angles and sewm in bits of blue cloth, and a number of blue 
glass ornaments in the shape of hands, horseshoes, etc. The 
baby, thus decked out, is next placed in a fine square-quilted 
covering, one corner of which forms a hood, the other three 
being crossed over its body; a red gauze veil thrown over 
the whole completing its toilet. After the child's birth, a 
state couch is prepared on a bedstead used for the occasion, 
decorated with the richest silks, the heaviest gold embroid- 
eries and the finest gauzes of the East. The bed is first cov- 
ered with a gauze sheet, worked with gold threads; five or 



106' STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

six long pillows of various colored silks, covered with richly- 
embroidered pillow-cases, open at the ends, occupy the head 
and one side of the couch, one or two yorgans, or quilted 
coverlets, heavily laden with gold embroidery, occasionally 
mixed with pearls and precious stones, and the under-sides 
lined with gauze sheets, are thrown over it. On this bed of 
state the happy mother is placed, at no small sacrifice of ease 
and comfort. Her head is encircled with a red Fotoz, or 
scarf, ornamented wnth a bunch of charms similar to that 
placed on the head of the child, the garlic insinuating its head 
through the red veil that falls on the temples. A stick, sur- 
mounted by an onion, is placed in one corner of the room, 
against the wall. 

When these preliminary arrangements have been made, 
the husband is admitted, who, after feHcitating his wdfe on 
the happy event, has his offspring put into his arms; he at 
once carries it behind the door, and, after muttering a short 
prayer, shouts three times into the baby's ear the name 
chosen for it. He then gives back the infant to its mother 
and quits the room. 

For several days (the exact time depending upon the mo- 
ther's health) water, either for drinking or ablutionary pur- 
poses, is not comprised in the regime imposed upon the in- 
valid, whose lips may be parched with thirst, but not a drop 
of water is given to her. Sherbet, made from a kind of 
candied sugar and spices, varied by a tisane extracted from 
the maiden-hair fern, is the only drink administered. Turk- 
ish ladies, after confinement, get little rest ; the moment the 
event is known, relations, friends and neighbors crowd in, 




< 



STOBT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 109 

and are at once permitted to enter the chamber and partake 
of sherbet, sweets and coffee, not even abstaining from their 
inveterate habit of smoking cigarettes. 

On the second day, a great quantity of this sherbet is pre- 
pared, and bottles of it sent to friends and acquaintances by 
Musdadjis, also an invitation to the Djemiet, or reception 
held on the third day. The house on this occasion is thrown 
open to visitors, invited or uninvited. Dinner is served to 
the former and sherbet to the latter. Bands of music are in 
attendance to receive and accompany upstairs the most dis- 
tinguished guests, who arrive in groups, preceded by ser- 
vants bearing baskets of sweets, prettily got up with flowers 
and gilt paper and enveloped in gauze tied up with ribbons. 

The guests are first conducted into an antechamber, where 
they are divested of their Yashmaks and Feridjes (veils and 
cloaks), previous to being introduced to the presence of the 
invalid. The latter kisses the hands of all the elderly 
hanoums, who say to her, "^.Tashallah, ermuli kadunli ol- 
soun" (Wonderful! Let it be long-lived and happy!). Very 
little notice is taken of the baby, and even then only dispar- 
aging remarks are made about it, both by relatives and 
guests, such as Murdar (dirty), Chirkin (ugly), Yaramaz 
(naughty). If looked at it is immediately spat upon, and 
then left to slumber in innocent unconsciousness of the un- 
deserved abuse it has received. 

As soon as the visitors have departed, a few cloves are 
thrown into the brazier, to test whether any ill effects of 
the evil eye have been left behind. Should the cloves happen 
to burst in burning, the inference is drawn that the evil eye 



110 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

has exerted its influence; the consequences of which can 
only be averted by some hair from the heads of the mother 
and child being cut off and burnt with the view of fumigating 
the unfortunate victims with the noxious vapor. Prayers 
and sundry incantations, intermingled with blowings and 
spittings, are made over the heads of the stricken creatures, 
and only desisted from when a fit of yawning proclaims that 
the ill-effects of the Nazar (evil eye) have been finally ban- 
ished. The party suspected of having given the Nazar is 
next surreptitiously visited by some old woman, who man- 
ages to possess herself of a scrap of some part of the sus- 
pected person's dress, with which a second fumigation is 
made. 

Among the lower orders, coffee, sugar and other pro- 
visions frequently replace the baskets of sweets; and if the 
father of the child is an official, his superior and subordinates 
may accompany these with gifts of value. The poor, who 
cannot afford to give dinners, content themselves with 
oft'ering sherbet and coffee to their visitors. With the poor, 
the third, and with the rich the eighth, day is appointed for 
the bathing of the mother and child. There is a curious, but 
deeply-rooted superstition, accepted by all Turkish women, 
which imposes upon them the necessity of never leaving the 
mother and child alone, for fear they should become Albal- 
ghan mish, possessed by the Peris. The red scarfs and veils 
are also used as preservatives against this imaginary evil. 
When a poor person is unavoidably left alone, a broom is 
placed by the bedside to mount guard over her and her child. 

If the ceremony of the bath takes place in the house, the 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. Ill 

Ebe Kadin and a number of friends are invited to join the 
bathers and partake of luncheon or some other refreshments. 
When the ceremony is carried out at the pubhc bath, the 
company march there in procession, headed by the Ebe Ka- 
din carrying the baby. Each family sends a carpet and the 
bathing linen tied up in a bundle, covered with the embroid- 
ery and pearls sometimes amounting in value to $150 or 
$200. The mother and child are naturally the chief objects 
of attention. The former, divested of her clothing, is 
wrapped in her silk scarf offered to her by the Hammamji 
Hanoun (mistress of the bath), puts on a pair of high pattens 
worked with si4ver, and is led into the inner bath, supported 
on one side by the Hammamji and on the other by some 
friend, the baby in charge of the Ebe Kadin bringing up 
the rear. Hot water is thrown over it, and it is rubbed and 
scrubbed, keeping the company alive with its screams of dis- 
tress. This concluded, the infant is carried out, and its 
mother taken in hand by her Ebe Kadin, who, before com- 
mencing operations, throws a bunch of keys into the basin, 
muttering some prayers, and then blows three times into it. 
A few pails of water are thrown over the bather, and after 
the washing of the head and sundry manipulations have 
been performed, she is led to the centre platform, where she 
is placed in a reclining position, with her head resting on a 
silver bowl. A mixture of honey, spices and aromatics, 
forming a brownish mess, is thickly besmeared all over her 
body, and allowed to remain about an hour. Her friends 
surround her during this tedious process, and amuse her with 
songs and Hvely conversation, every now and then transfer- 



112 8T0RY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

ring some of this composition from her body to their mouths 
with their fingers. The spicy coating thus fingered gives 
to the lady a singular zebra-like appearance ; but though not 
becoming, it is believed to possess very strengthening and 
reviving powers, and it is considered a good augury even to 
get only a taste of it. What remains of this mixture after 
the friends have been sufficiently regaled is washed off. 

The lady, no doubt greatly benefited by this application, 
is then wrapped in her bathing-dress, the borders of which 
are worked with gold, and is ready to leave the bath. Pre- 
vious to doing so, she must make a round of the baths, and 
kiss the hands of all the elderly ladies, who say to her in re- 
turn, ''shifalou olsoun." Refreshments are offered in 
abundance to the guests during the ceremony, which lasts 
the greater part of the day. These formalities are only 
required at the birth of the first child ; at other times they are 
optional. 

The cradle plays a great part in the first stage of baby ex- 
istence. It is a very strange arrangement, and, like many 
Turkish things and customs, not very easy to describe. It 
is a long, narrow wooden box fixed upon two rockers, the 
ends of which rise a foot and one-half above the sides, and are 
connected at their summits by a strong rail, which serves as a 
support to the nurse when giving nourishment to the child. 
The mattress is hard and no pillow is allowed. The baby 
lies on its back, with its arms straight down by its sides, its 
legs drawn down, and toes turned in. 

It is kept in this position by a swathe, which bandages the 
child all over to the cradle. A small cushion is placed on 



,STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 115 

the chest and another on the knees of the child, to keep it in 
position and prevent the bandage from hurting it. The in- 
fant thus secured becomes a perfect fixture, the head being 
the only member allowed the liberty of moving from side to 
side. This strange contrivance (called the kundak) has a 
very distorting effect, and is one of the principal causes of 
the want of symmetry in the lower limbs of the Turks and of 
the Armenians (who are reared in the same fashion), who 
are, as a rule, bow-legged and turn their toes in. The kun- 
dak system is going out of fashion among the higher classes, 
but it is still resorted to by the lower, who find it extremely 
convenient on account of the leisure k affords to the mother. 
The child thus disposed of, is left in the cradle for five or six 
hours at a time ; it is occasionally nursed, and in the intervals 
sucks an emsik, composed of masticated bread and sugar, or 
some Rabat Lakoum (Turkish delight) tied up in a piece of 
muslin. 

All Turkish mothers and many Armenians of the lower 
orders administer strong sleeping draughts, generally of 
opmm, poppy-head or theriac, to their infants; some carry 
the abuse of these to such an extent that the children appear 
always in a drowsy state, the countenance pale, the eyelids 
half-closed, the pupils of the eyes contracted, the lips parched 
and dry, and a peculiar hazy expression fixed upon the face ; 
all the movements are lethargic, in marked contrast to the 
sprightly motion of a healthy American child. The natural 
baby cry is replaced by a low moan, and no eagerness is 
shown for the mother's milk, only an inclination to remain 
listless and inactive. Besides the stupefying effect of these 



116 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Opiates on the brain, they are highly injurious to the diges- 
tive organs, occasioning constipation, which, treated 
under the designation of sangyu (coHc), is increased 
by frequent employment of heating medicines, such as 
spirits of mint, camomile or aniseed. A Turkish mother 
never thinks of giving her child an aperient; almond oil is 
the nearest approach to a remedy of this kind. 

Sleeplessness, uneasiness or slight indisposition in babies 
are generally put down to the efifects of the evil eye. Any 
old woman, whose breath is considered most efficacious, is 
called in. She takes hold of the child, mutters prayers over 
it, exercising a sort of mesmeric influence, and blowing it at 
intervals, a remedy that results in soothing the child to sleep 
for awhile. Should her breathing powers prove ineffica- 
cious, the Sheikh (whose breath is held in the highest es- 
teem) is called in. The magnetizing powers of the latter are 
increased by the addition of a muska (amulet) hung around 
the neck of the child, for which a shilling is paid. When all 
these remedies prove unavailing, the doctor is appHed to; but 
his advice, generally little understood and less credited, is 
never thoroughly carried out. The Turks have no faith in 
medicine or doctors — "kismet" overrides all such human 
efforts. 

No regime is followed with regard to the food of a child. 
It is allowed to eat whatever it can get hold of, and digest it 
as best it can. 

CIRCUMCISION. 

A rite of childhood, which must not be passed over, since 
it is accompanied by curious ceremonies, is circumcision. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 117 

The obligatory duty of parents in this matter falls heavily on 
the middle classes and entails great expense upon the bud- 
get of the wealthy. When a Turk of some standing is ex- 
pected to have a Sunnet Duhun, the coming event is watched 
for by a number of persons who cannot afford individually 
to undertake the responsibiHty of the outlay the ceremony 
would involve. All such individuals send in the names of 
their children, begging that they might be allowed to partici- 
pate in the ceremonial rite. The grandee appealed to fixes 
the number of these according to his means or his gener- 
osity. When the ceremony takes place in the imperial pal- 
ace, the Sultans have not the liberty of limiting the number 
of applicants, which sometimes amounts to thousands, and 
occasions a very heavy drain upon the treasury. 

The Sunnet Duhun begins on a Monday and lasts a whole 
week. The ages of the candidates range from four to ten 
years. The boys are sent to the bath, where the uncropped 
tufts of hair left on the crown of their heads are plaited with 
gold threads, allowed to hang down their backs up to the 
moment of initiation. The chief candidate is provided with 
a suit of clothes richly worked with gold and ornamented on 
the breast with jewels in the shape of a shield; his fez is also 
entirely covered with jewels. The number of precious orna- 
ments necessary for the ceremony is so great that they have 
in part to be borrowed from relatives and friends, who are in 
duty bound to lend them. The caps and coats of all the 
minor aspirants are equally studded with gems. They are 
provided with complete suits of clothes by the family in 



118 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

whose house the Sunnet Duhun is held, by whom also all 
other expenses connected with the ceremony are defrayed. 

On the Monday, the youths, decked out in their parade 
costumes, and led by some old ladies, make a round of calls 
at the harems and invite their friends for the coming events, 
Monday and Tuesday being dedicated to a series of enter- 
tainments given in the Selamlik, whose hospitality is largely 
extended to the poor as well as the rich. Wednesday and 
Thursday are reserved to the Haremlik, where great rejoic- 
ings take place, enlivened by bands of music and dancing 
girls. On the morning of the latter day the ladies busy 
themselves in arranging the state bed, as well as a number 
of others of more modest appearance. The boys, in the 
meantime, mounted upon richly-caparisoned steeds and ac- 
companied by their Hodjas, the family barber and some 
friends, and preceded by music, pass in procession through 
the town. On returning home, the party is received at the 
door by the parents of the boys. The father of the principal 
candidate takes the lead and stands by the side of the step- 
ping-block, the barber and Hodja taking their places at his 
side. The horse of the young boy is brought round, and 
the hand of the father, extended to help him to dismount, is 
stayed for a moment by that of the Hodja, who solemnly 
asks him, 'With what gift hast thou endowed thy son?" The 
parent then declares the present intended for his son, which 
may consist of landed property or any object of value, ac- 
cording to his means, and then assists him to dismount. The 
other boys follow, each claiming and receiving a gift from 
his father or nearest of kin. Should any of the boys be des- 




GREAT MOSQUE— TOMB OF JOHN THE BAPTIST, DAMASCUS. 



TOMB OF SULTAN MAHMAUD, 



^"^TORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 121 

titute of relatives, the owner of the house takes the father's 
place and portions him. 

The children are then taken to the Haremlik, where they 
remain until evening, when they return to the Selamlik and 
do not again see their mothers till the morning of the com- 
pletion of the ceremony, when they are carried to the Har- 
emlik and placed upon the beds prepared for them. The 
entertainments this day are carried on in both departments. 
The children are visited by all their friends and relations, 
who offer them money and other presents, the ladies every 
now and then disappearing, in order to allow the gentlemen 
to enter and bring their offerings. The money and gifts 
collected on these occasions sometimes amount to consid- 
erable sums. The Hodja and barber are equally favored. 
The Musdadji receives a gold piece from the mother on an- 
nouncing to her the completion of the sacred rite. 

Every effort is made in the harem to amuse and please the 
children and beguile the time for them till evening, when the 
fatigue and feverish excitement of the day begin to tell upon 
them, and they show signs of weariness, the signal for the 
break-up of the party. On the next day the boys are taken 
home by their relatives, but the entertainments are continued 
in the principal house till the following Monday. 

The Turks, hospitable on all occasions, are particularly so 
on this, and consider it a religious duty to show special re- 
gard and attention to the poor and destitute. 

CHILDREN JN THE HOME. 

Both at home and at school the Moslem learns almost 



122 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

nothing that will serve him in good stead in after life. Worse 
than this : in those early years spent at home, when the child 
ought to have instilled into him some germ of those prin- 
ciples of conduct by which men must walk in the world if 
they are to hold up their heads among civilized nations, the 
Turkish child is only taught the first steps toward those 
vicious habits of mind and body which have made his race 
what it is. The root of the evil is partly found in the harem 
system. So long as that system keeps Turkish women in 
their present degraded state, so long will Turkish boys and 
girls be vicious and ignorant. Turkish mothers have not the 
slightest control over their children. They are left to do 
very much as they like, become wayward, disobedient and 
unbearably tyrannical. As a general rule, the manner in 
which children treat their mothers among the lower classes 
is still worse and quite painful to witness. 

Should their requests meet with the slightest resistance, 
they will sit stamping with their feet, pounding with their 
hands, clamoring and screaming, till they obtain the desired 
object. The mothers, who have as little control over them- 
selves as over their children, quickly lose their temper, and 
begin vituperating their children in language of which a very 
mild, but general form, is, Yerin dibine batasen ("May you 
sink under the earth!"). 

They are not favored with the possession of the instructive 
books, toy tools, games, etc. 

A Turkish child is never known to take a cold bath in the 
morning; is never made to take a constitutional walk, or 
have his limbs developed by the healthy exercise of gymnas- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 123 

tics. No children's libraries exist to stimulate the desire for 
study, for which, it is true, Httle taste is displayed. 

No regular hours are kept for getting up and going to bed. 
The children, even when sleepy, obstinately refuse to go to 
their beds, and prefer to stretch themselves on a sofa, whence 
they are carried fast asleep. On rising, no systematic atten- 
tion is paid either to their food, ablutions or dressing. A 
wash is given to their faces and hands, but their heads, not 
regularly or daily combed, generally afford shelter to creep- 
ing guests, that can only be partially dislodged at the Ham- 
mam. Children are allowed to breakfast on anything they 
find in the larder or buy from the haw^kers of cakes in the 
streets. There is no reserve of language observed before 
young girls, who are allowed to listen to conversations in 
wdiich spades are very decidedly called spades. 

The girls are allowed free access into the selamlik up to 
the time they are considered old enough to wear the veil; 
which, once adopted, must exclude a female from further 
intercourse with the men's side of the house. The shameful 
neglect girls experience during childhood leaves them alone 
to follow their own instincts; alternately spoiled and rudely 
chastened by uneducated mothers, they grow up in hopeless 
ignorance of every branch of study that might develop their 
mental or moral faculties and fit them to fulfill the duties that 
must in time devolve upon them. In this respect, a change 
for the better is taking place at Constantinople; the edu- 
cation of the girls among the higher classes is much im- 
proved. 



124 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

TURKISH WEDDINGS. 

The Turks generally marry early, from seventeen for the 
men, and from eleven for the girls, who all marry, so that an 
old maid is absolutely unknown in Turky. This custom of 
early marriages is encouraged by parents as a check upon 
their sons contracting wild habits. 

The Nekyah, or betrothal, comprises the fiancailles as well 
as the matrimonial contract. The preliminaries of the en- 
gagement are undertaken by the parents of the contracting 
parties. The mother or some near relative of the young 
man, in company with a few of her friends and the Koula- 
vouz, starts on a tour of inspection, visiting families known 
to possess marriageable daughters. The object of the visit 
being made known, they are admitted, and the eldest girl pre- 
sents herself, offers coffee, kisses hands all round, waits to 
take the empty cups, and then disappears, her inspectors 
having to content themselves with the short view they have 
thus had of her. Should this prove satisfactory, they at once 
enter into negotiations, make inquiries as to the age and 
dowry of the girl, answer counter-inquiries on the condition 
of the youth, and say that, if it be agreeable to both parties 
and it is Kismet that the marriage should take place, they 
will come again and make the final arrangements. On the 
mother's return home, she gives a faithful description of the 
maiden's appearance to her son, and should this meet with 
his approval, the intermediaries are commissioned to settle 
all preliminaries. 

The dowry is, of course, among Moslems given by the 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 127 

bridegroom; the only dowry Turkish brides are bound to 
bring consists in a rich trousseau. Should the lady possess 
any property, the husband cannot assume any right over it, 
nor over any of the rest of her belongings. The wisdom 
and generosity of this law cannot be too highly commended ; 
it is an indispensable clause in the canons of polygamy. So 
easy is it for a Turk to divorce his wife, that he has only to 
say to her in a moment of anger, "Cover thy face, thy nekyah 
is in thy hands," and she ceases to be his wife, and must at 
once leave his abode, carrying with her, luckily for her, "bag 
and baggage." The privilege of divorce thus indulgently 
permitted to a man are entirely beyond the reach of a woman, 
whom no human power can release from her nekyah vows 
without her husband's free consent. And even if she gain 
her dowry and trousseau, which she would retain if divorced 
not of her own motion, this unfair restriction gives rise to 
many unhappy disputes, issuing in litig-ation, which ever 
proves vain and fruitless against the obstinacy of the hus- 
band, or, even worse, his helplessness, should he becoime 
insane; for a lunatic's word of divorce cannot count before 
the law. The Turkish husband has the power of divorcing 
his wife and taking her back twice; but should he send her 
away for the third time, she must be married to another man 
before she can again return to her first husband. This 
strange and disgusting law is meant as a check upon people 
disposed to abuse too often the privilege of divorce. The 
person asked to fulfil this strange position of intermediary 
husband must be advanced in years, generally belongs to the 
poorer class, and receives a sum of money for his services. 



128 8T0BY OF TURRET AND ARMENIA. 

The conditions are that he should enter the abode of the 
lady for one night only, and quit in the next morning, telling 
her, "Thy liberty is in thy hands, thou art no longer my wife." 
Cases have been known when the old gentleman, finding his 
position pleasant, has refused to give the lady up, and if this 
should happen, the first husband is wholly without remedy 
and must forego his desire of reunion with his former wife. 

It is customary for the bridegroom to furnish the wedding 
dress and sundry other accessories, as well as to promise the 
nekyah money settled upon the wife in case of divorce. 
These, including the Kaftan (outer wedding dress), are sent 
wath great pomp eight days before the Duhun. The Hodja, 
priest of the parish in which the parents of the girl reside, is 
requested to give a declaration that the young lady is free to 
contract matrimony. This, taken to the Kadi, obtains the 
marriage license, for which a small fee is paid. A piece of 
red silk and some sugar-plums are taken by the bridegroom's 
mother to the house of the bride. The red silk, which later 
on is made into an under-garment, is spread on this occasion 
on the floor; upon it the young lady steps to kiss the hand of 
her future mother-in-law, and receives the gift with her 
blessing. Half of one of these sugar-plums, bitten in two by 
her pearly teeth, is taken to the bridegroom as the first love 
token; literal sweetness in this case making up for any fault 
in the sentiment. These preliminaries are sealed by the for- 
mality performed by the Imam in the presence of witnesses, 
who are called to the door of the Haremlik, behind which 
the maiden and her friends stand. The Imam asks the 
bride if she consents to accept the youth proposed (giving 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 129 

his name) for her husband. The question is repeated three 
times, the bride answering each time in the affirmative. The 
Hodja has to declare the amount of the nekyah money prom- 
ised, and calls three times upon the bystanders to bear wit- 
ness before God to the contract; a short prayer follows, and 
the ceremony is concluded. The felicitations are conveyed 
in the poetical expression of "May Allah grant harmony be- 
tween their two stars!" The contract, religious as well as 
civil, is made verbally, and though no other ceremony of im- 
portance follows it, the bride and bridegroom do not see 
each other until the Duhun or wedding festivities have been 
held. The length of this period may be from a few weeks to 
a few years, and is a blank which potential love is at liberty 
to fill with fantastic pictures of coming happiness. No 
sweet messages, letters or communications of any kind are 
allowed during the interval to pave the way towards the 
future binding together of two beings whose common lot is 
cast, without regard to personal sympathy, into the vague 
abyss of destiny. Kismet, the supreme ruler of all Turkish 
events, is left to decide the degree of misery or indifference 
that marriage, contracted under such unfavorable circum- 
stances, may bring, instead of the looked-for happiness. 

THE TROUSSEAU. 

The trousseau comprises bedding, sometimes to the 
amount of fifty sets, each composed of two mattresses, two 
quilted coverlets, and three cotton bolsters ; kitchen utensils, 
:ill of copper, very numerous, consisting of two or three im- 



130 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

mense cauldrons, several large jugs and pans, and a great 
number of dinner trays with the services belonging to them. 
Among the wealthy, one of these would be of silver. It also 
comprises furniture for two rooms of some rich material 
embroidered with gold, a handsome mangal (brazier), cur- 
tains, and a few carpets and rugs, besides the house linen. 
The wardrobe contains several expensive fur jackets, a shawl 
or two, some feridjes, and a number of suits of apparel, con- 
sisting of undergowns and jackets. The gelinlik or wedding 
dress, ranging in value from $300 to $500, is embroidered 
with gold and pearls. The rest are less rich in material, and 
are of silk and woolen stuffs, and less expensive materials 
down to print gedjliks. The other articles are chemises, a 
few pairs of stockings, boots and slippers, som.e dozens of 
worked handkerchiefs, head-ties and yashmaks, together 
with a number of European odds and ends, such as petticoats, 
gloves and parasols. 

The Duhun, like the circumcision ceremony, lasts a whole 
week, occasioning great expense to the parents, who, how- 
ever, cannot possibly avoid it, and often incur debts for its 
celebration that hangs heavily upon them through life. 

The bride's face is a mask of gold-dust and gum, worked 
on the cheeks, forehead and chin with spangles. The eye- 
brows are thickly painted and meet over the nose, and the 
teeth are blackened. This hideous disguisement is worn till 
evening, when the bridegroom, on his first visit to the bride, 
pours out the water with which she washes it away, in order 
to give the nuptial kiss. 

The wedding festivities begin on Monday. A number of 




MOSQUE OF the: SULTAN VAI.IDE. 



rOSPHORUS. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 133 

frknds and relatives collect at the home of the bride to su- 
perintend the final arrangement and expedition of the trous- 
seau to the bridegroom's house. 

It is customary for Turkish youths to have homes to 
take their wives to them on marrying. Should the Konak 
be too small to accommodate all the married sons, extra 
wings are added to it. The guests, left to themselves,' at 
once set to work to decorate the bridal chamber, some 
stretching strings along the walls on which to hang the larger 
articles of dress, such as furred and embroided jackets, ferid- 
jes, cloaks, and intaris, all of bright colors and richly worked 
and trimmed. The shawls, prayer carpet and bridal bogh- 
cha, all objects of value, occupy the centre of these row^s, 
which are successively surmounted by others, consisting of 
the Hnen, kerchiefs, towels, head-scarfs and other adjuncts 
of the toilet, all arranged with great taste. Along the top of 
the walls run a garland of crape flowers. The bride's corner 
is richly decorated with these and other artificial flowers, ar- 
ranged in the form of a bower. This promiscuous exhibi- 
tion of silk gauze and various stuffs, intermingled with em- 
broidery in variegated silks, gold and silver, is most striking 
in effect, and forms, with the bridal bower, a sight peculiarly 
Oriental and gorgeous. The alcove is reserved for the dis- 
play of jewels and other precious objects placed under glass 
shades. 

When this adornment (which takes up the whole night) is 
completed, the party goes to the next room and arranges 
the furniture sent for it, thence proceeding to the hall and 
unpacking the bedding, which, placed against the walls upon 



134 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

the empty cases, forms a huge mass of colored strata of silk, 
embroidery and bright cotton print. One or two little stools 
of walnut wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, support the 
candelabra, and the hochaf tray, with its prettily-cut crystal 
bowl and ivory spoons, would be placed in front, together 
with the brooms, dust-pan of walnut wood, inlaid with silver, 
both patterns of the same materials, and the kitchen utensils, 
mangals, and all other belongings of the bride. 

On Tuesday the bride is taken to the bath with great cere- 
mony, the expenses on this occasion being defrayed by the 
bridegroom. Before leading to the bath, the bride is led 
three times round the centre platform, kisses hands all round, 
and goes out to be dressed. The clothes she wears on this 
occasion must not belong to her. On Wednesday, the bride- 
groom's party of lady friends go in a body to the home of the 
bride, preceded by the Koulavouz, who announce their arri- 
val with an air of great importance. Violent confusion en- 
sues; and mother, followed by her friends, descends the 
staircase. They form a double row, each couple conducting 
a visitor between them, beginning with the bridegroom's 
mother, and proceed upstairs into apartments specially 
reserved for the friends of the bridegroom, who do not mix 
with the bride's party on this occasion. When their veils 
and cloaks have been removed, they seat themselves round the 
room and partake of bitter cofifee and cigarettes, followed 
half an hour later by sweet coffee. The bride is led into the 
room by two hanoums, who have only been married once, 
and kisses the hands of all present, beginning with her future 
mother-in-law and terminating with the youngest child in 



STORY OF TURRET AND ARMENIA. 135 

the room. She is then seated on a chair near her Kayn Va- 
Hde, who is allowed on this occasion to take her by her side 
for a few minutes only, during which masticated sugar is 
exchanged between them as a token of future harmony. The 
bride is then taken away, excused by some insipid remarks on 
the expiring rights of maternal possession over her. 

The dancing girls and musicians are now called in and 
perform before the company, receiving money from each 
person as they leave the room, in order to entertain the other 
party of guests. When the bridegroom's friends are about 
to leave, they throw small coins over the head of the bride, 
who is led down to the door for the purpose. The scramble 
that ensues among the hawkers of sweets, fruits* etc., assem- 
bled in the court, the children, the beggars and innumerable 
parasites crowding houses during the celebration of a wed- 
ding is beyond description. Before departure, an invitation 
is given for the evening to take part in the Kena, an enter- 
tainment more especially designed for the bride and her 
maiden friends. When the company is assembled, tapers 
are handed to each, and a procession formed, headed by the 
bride and accompanied by the dancing girls and music. 
They descend the staircase into the garden, and wind among 
the flower-beds and groves of trees. The lights, the gay 
dresses, flashing jewels and floating hair of the girls, the 
bright castanets, and the wild songs and weird music of the 
accompanists, combine to form a glimpse of fairyland, or a 
dream of "The Thousand and One Nights." 

The ceremony of the Kena consists in the application of 
the henna mixture, which is prepared tov/ard morning. The 



136 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

bride, after being divested of her wedding finery, enters the 
presence of her mother-in-law, shading her eyes with her 
left arm, while she seats herself in the middle of the room. 
A silk bath scarf is thrown over her outstretched right hand, 
and is then thickly plastered over with the henna, upon which 
her mother-in-law sticks a gold coin, her example being fol- 
lowed by the rest of her company. This hand, placed in a 
silk bag, relieves the other in covering her eyes, and the left 
hand is in its turn extended and gifted in like manner by the 
bride's mother and her friends ; the feet are also stained with 
the henna. This is followed by the last dance, called the 
Sakusum, performed by the Chingis, accompanied by a song 
and gestures of the most unrestrained and immodest nature, 
terminating in these dancers taking extraordinary positions 
before each guest, sometim.es even sitting on their knees to 
receive their reward, which consists of a small gold coin, 
damped in the mouth and deposited on their unblushing 
foreheads. In these proceedings the modesty and innocence 
of the young girls present is never thought about. The 
bride reposes long enough for the henna to impart its crim- 
son dye, but not to turn black, which would be considered a 
bad augury. 

The only touching scene in the whole course of the wed- 
ding ceremonies, the girding of the bride by her father, takes 
place in the presence of her mother and sisters just before she 
leaves the home of her childhood. The father enters the 
room, appearing deeply affected, and sometimes even join- 
ing his tears to the weeping of his wife and daughters. The 
bride, also weeping, falls at his feet, kisses them and kisses his 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 139 

hands, while he presses her to his breast and girds her with 
the bridal girdle, giving at the same time some good advice 
and his blessing. 

In some district towns the bridegroom's male friends ar- 
rive at dawn with torches to take away the bride. She is 
not, however, seen by her husband until evening, when he 
is taken to the mosque and accompanies her to the door of 
his dwelling by the Imam. A short prayer is offered, the 
company joining in the refrain of Amin, Amin, at the conclu- 
sion of which the happy man is pushed into the house, a 
shower of blows falling on his back; they then partake of 
sherbet standing, and disperse. The bridegroom, proceed- 
ing upstairs, comes upon a bowl of water, which he upsets 
with his foot, scattering the contents in all directions. The 
Koulavooz meets and conducts him to the nuptial apartment, 
where the bride, shy and trembling, awaits the introduction 
of the complete stranger, in whose hands her destiny for 
good or for evil is now placed. 

She rises as he enters, and kisses his hand ; her bridal veil, 
removed by the Koulavouz, is spread on the floor and knelt 
on by the bridegroom, who ofifers a solemn prayer, the bride 
all the time standing on its edge behind him. The couple 
then sit side by side, the old lady approaching their heads to- 
gether, while she shows them the reflection of their united 
images in a mirror, and expresses her wishes for the continu- 
ation of their present harmonious union. 

Masticated sugar is exchanged between them as a token 
of the sweetness that must henceforth flow from their lips. 
Coffee follovv^s, after which the Koulavouz retires, until her 



140 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

services are again required for bringing in the supper, which 
consists of sweets and eggs, meat being exckided on the 
ground that to indulge in it on so solemn an occasion would 
lead to future bickerings between them. The supper-hour 
depends upon the shyness, obstinacy or goodwill of the 
bride, over whom her husband can have no control until he 
has succeeded in making her respond to his question. Brides 
are recommended by experienced matrons to remain mute 
as long as possible, and the husband is sometimes obliged to 
resort to a stratagem in order to accomplish this. The anx- 
iously looked-for speech is at once echoed by the relieved 
husband by a knock on the wall, which is the signal for sup- 
per. This partaken of, the bride is divested of her finery and 
the paint and flowers washed ofif by the Koulavouz, and left 
to repose after the fatigue and excitement of five successive 
days of festivity, still to be extended for two days longer. On 
the morrow she is again decked in her wedding apparel, to 
receive the crowd of hanoums, invited and uninvited, that 
flock to the house to gaze upon her. 

At Constantinople, the bride is taken on the Thursday 
morning from the paternal roof and conveyed in a carriage 
to her new home, followed by a train of other carriages, pre- 
ceded by music and surrounded by buf¥ons, performing ab- 
surd mummeries for the amusement of the party, besides a 
numerous company of unruly youths, some mounted and 
others on foot, most of whom get intoxicated and noisy on 
the pccasion. The bride is received by her husband at the 
door; he offers his arm, and conducts her upstairs through 
the crovrd of hanoums, who are not very careful about hiding 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 141 

their faces, on the plea that the bridegroom being otherwise 
occupied will not look at them. He leads his wife to the 
bower prepared for her, but, before taking her seat, a scufifle 
ensues between them for precedence, each trying to step upon 
the foot of the other, the successful person being supposed 
to acquire the right of future supremacy. 

FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 

According to some verses taken from the Koran, earthly 
existence is but a fleeting shadow, seen for a moment, then 
lost sight of for ever; its joys and pleasures all delusion; itself 
a mere stepping-stone to the celestial life awaiting the true 
believer. 

''Know that this life is but a sport — a pastime — a show — 
a cause of vainglory among you! And the multiplying of 
riches and children is like the (plants which spring up after) 
rain; whose grow^th rejoices the husbandman; then they 
wither away, and thou seest them all yellow; then they be- 
come stubble." 

At the approach of death, the moribund appears resigned 
to his fate and his friends reconciled to the thought of his 
approaching end. No Imam or servant of God is called in 
to soothe the departing spirit or speed its flight by the admin- 
istration of sacraments. The friends and relatives collected 
round the couch weep in silence, and if the departing one is 
able to speak, helal (forgiveness) is requested and given. 
Prayers are repeated by the pious, to keep away the evil 
spirits that are supposed to collect in greater force at such 



142 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

moments. Charitable donations are made, and other acts of 
generosity performed at deathbeds; and frequently at such 
times slaves are set free by their owners, for it is written: 
"They who give alms by night and by day, in private and 
public, shall have their reward with their Lord ; no fear shall 
come upon them, neither shall they grieve." 

The moment the soul is believed to have quitted the body, 
the women begin to utter wailings. Some tear their hair, 
others beat their breasts, in an outburst of genuine sorrow. 
A lull soon follows, and, without loss of time, preparations 
are made for performing the last duties to the corpse; for the 
Turks do not keep their dead unburied any longer than is 
necessary for the completion of these preliminaries. 

If the death be that of a person of consequence, the Muez- 
zin chants the special cry from the minaret; and invitations 
are issued to friends and acquaintances for the funeral. Di- 
rectly after death, the eyelids are pressed down and the chin 
bandaged; the body is undressed and laid on a bed called 
rahat yatak (couch of comfort), with the hands stretched by 
the side, the feet tied together, and the head turned towards 
the Kibla. A veil is then laid over the body. While the 
company is gathering in the Selamlik, or in the street, per- 
forming the ablution (abtest), and preparing for the prayer 
(namaz), the corpse, if it be that of a man, is taken into the 
courtyard on the stretcher, and an Imam, with two subordi- 
nates, proceeds to wash it. 

The formalities connected with this observance are of 
strictly religious character, and consequently carried out to 
the letter. The first condition to be observed is to keep the 



STORY OF TVRKHY AND ARMENIA. 143 

lower part of the body covered, the next to handle it with 
great gentleness and attention, lest those engaged in the per- 
formance of that duty draw upon them the curse of the dead. 
Seven small portions of cotton are rolled up in seven small 
pieces of calico ; each of these is successively passed between 
the limbs by the Imam, while some hot water is poured over 
the bundles, which are then cast away one after the other. 
After the rest of the body has been washed, the abtest, or 
formal religious ablution, is administered to it. This con- 
sists in washing the hands, and in bringing water in the hand 
three times to the nose, three times to the lips, and three 
times from the crown of the head to the temples; from be- 
hind the ears to the neck ; from the palm of the hand to the 
elbow, and then to the feet, first to the right and then to the 
left. This strange ceremony is performed twice. The ta- 
bout (coffin) is then brought in and placed by the side of the 
stretcher, both of coarse deal, put together with the rudest 
workmanship. Before laying the body in the coffin, a piece 
of new calico, double its size, is brought. A strip about two 
inches in width is torn off the edge, and divided into three 
pieces, which are placed upon three long scarfs laid across 
the shell. The cahco, serving as a shroud, is next stretched 
in the coffin, and a thousand and one drachms of cotton, with 
which to envelop the corpse, are placed upon it. Some of 
this cotton is used to stop the issues of the body, and is placed 
under the arm-pits and between the fingers and toes. 

The body is then dressed in a sleeveless shirt, called kaflet, 
and is gently placed in the coffin. Pepper is sifted on the 
eyes, and a saline powder on the face, to preserve from un- 



144 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

timely decay; rose-water is then sprinkled on the face, which 
is finally enveloped in the remainder of the cotton. The 
shroud is then drawn over and secured by the three strips of 
calico, one tied round the head, the other round the waist, 
and the third round the feet, and the cofBn is closed down. 

When all is ready, the guests are admitted ; and the Imam, 
turning round, asks the crowd: "O congregation! What 
do you consider the life of this man to have been?" "Good" 
is the invariable response. ''Then give helal to him.'' The 
coffin, covered with shawls, and carrying a*t the head the 
turban or fez of the deceased hung on a peg, is then borne 
on the shoulders of four or more individuals, who are con- 
stantly relieved by others; and the funeral procession, com- 
posed exclusively of men, headed by the Imam and Hodjas, 
slowly winds its way in silence through the streets until it 
arrives at the mosque where the funeral service is to be read. 
The coffin is deposited on a slab of marble, and a short Na- 
maz, called Mihit Namaz, is performed by the congregation 
standing. This concluded, the procession resumes its way 
to the burial-ground, where the coffin is deposited by the side 
of the grave. A small clod of earth, left at one end of the ex- 
cavation, in the direction of the Kibla, takes the place of a 
pillow. The coffin is then uncovered, and the body gently 
lifted out of it by the ends of the three scarfs, previously 
placed under it (one supporting the head, another the middle 
of the body, and the third the feet), and lowered into its last 
resting-place. A short prayer is then recited, a plank or two 
laid at a httle distance above the body, and the grave is filled 
up. 



^TORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 147 

At this stage, all the congregation withdraw, and the 
Imam is left alone by the side of the grave, where he is be- 
lieved to enter into mysterious communications with the 
spirit of the departed, who is supposed to answer all the ques- 
tions of his creed which his priest puts to him. He is 
prompted in these answers by two spirits, one good and one 
evil, who are believed to take their places by his side. Should 
he have been an indifferent follower of the Prophet, and for- 
bidden to enter Paradise, the evil spirit forces him to deny the 
only true God, and make a profession unto himself. A ter- 
rible battle is supposed to ensue in the darkness of the grave 
between the good and evil spirits called Vanqueur and Veni- 
queur. The good angel spares not his blows upon the corpse 
and the evil spirit, until the latter, beaten and disabled, aban- 
dons his prey, who, by Allah's mercy, is finally accepted 
within the fold of the true believers. This scene, however, is 
revealed to none by the Imam, and remains a secret between 
Allah, the departed and himself. 

It is considered sinful for parents to manifest extreme sor- 
row for the loss of their children, for it is believed that the 
children of over-mourning parents are driven out of Para- 
dise and made to wander about in darkness and solitude, 
weeping and wailing as their parents do on earth. But it is 
the reverse with the case of children bereaved of their par- 
ents; they are expected never to cease sorrowing, and are 
required to pray night and day for their parents' forgiveness 
and acceptance into Paradise. 

Part of the personal effects of the deceased is given to the 
poor, and charity distributed, according to the means of the 



148 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

family. On the third day after the funeral, loukmas (dough- 
nuts), covered with sifted sugar, are distributed to the friends 
of the family and to the poor, for the benefit of the soul of the 
departed. The ceremony is repeated on the seventh and 
the fortieth days, when bread is also distributed. These acts 
of charity are supposed to excite the gratitude of the de- 
parted, if already in Paradise, and, if in "another place," to 
occasion him a mom.ent of rest and comfort. 

External marks of mourning are not in usage among the 
Turks. Nothing is changed in the dress or routine of life in 
consequence of a death in a family. Visits of condolence 
are, however, paid by friends, who, on entering, express their 
sympathy by the saying, "Sis sagh oloun evlatlarounouz 
sagh olsoun" ("May you live, and may your children live"), 
with other expressions of a similar nature. Friends and rel- 
atives say prayers at stated times for the soul of the departed. 

A TURKISH KONAK OR MANSION. 

A Turkish Ivonak is a large building, very irregular in 
construction and without the slightest approach to European 
ideas of comfort or convenience. This building is divided 
into two parts, the haremlik and the selamlik ; the former and 
larger part is allotted to the women, the latter is occupied by 
the man, and is used for the transaction of business, the pur- 
poses of hospitality and formal receptions. The stables are 
attached to it, forming part of the ground floor, and render- 
ing some of the upper rooms rather unpleasant quarters. A 
narrow passage leading, from the mabeyn (or neutral ground) 



ST0B7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 149 

to the haremlik joins the two estabHshments. The ma- 
terials used for building are wood, lime, mud and stone for 
the foundations. A konak generally consists of two stories, 
one as nearly as possible resembling the other, with abund- 
ant provision for the entrance of light and air. A large hall, 
called the devankhane, forms the entrance into the harem- 
lik; it is surrounded by a number of rooms of various sizes. 
To the right, the largest serves as a sort of ante-chamber; 
the rest are sleeping apartments for the slaves, with the ex- 
ception of one called kahve-agak, where an old woman is 
always found sitting over a charcoal brazier, ready to boil 
coffee for every visitor. A large double staircase leads to 
the upper story, on one side of which is the kiler, or store- 
room, and on the other the lavatories. The floors are of deal, 
kept scrupulously clean and white, and in the rooms gener- 
ally covered with mats and rugs. The furniture is exceed- 
ingly poor and scanty; a hard, uncomfortable sofa runs along 
two and sometimes three sides of the room; a shelte, or small 
square mattress, occupies each corner, surmounted by a num- 
ber of cushions piled one upon the other in regular order. 
The corner of the sofa is the seat of the Hanoum, and by the 
side of the cushions are placed her mirror and chekmege. 

A small European sofa, a few chairs placed stifly against 
the wall, a console supporting a mirror and decorated with 
two lamps or candlesticks, together with a few goblets and 
a small table standing in the centre with cigarettes and tiny 
ash-trays, complete the furniture of the grandest provincial 
Buyuk-oda, though some Turks possess many rare and cu- 
rious objects, such as ancient armor and china, which, if dis- 



150 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

played, would greatly add to the elegance and cheerfulness 

of their apartments. These are always kept packed away in 
boxes. 

Windows are the great inconvenience in Turkish houses; 
they pierce the walls on every side, with hardly the space of a 
foot between them. The curtains are usually of coarse 
printed calico, short and scanty, with the edges pinked out, 
so that when washed they present a miserably ragged appear- 
ance. The innumerable windows render the house ill- 
adapted either for hot or cold weather; the burning rays of 
the sun pour in all day in summer, and the frames are so 
badly constmcted that the cold wind enters in all directions 
in winter. 

Bedsteads are not used by the Turks; mattresses are 
nightly spread on the floor, and removed in the morning into 
large cupboards, built into the walls of every room. 

BATHS. 

In a large house or konak this is by far the best-fitted and 
most useful part of the whole establishment. A Turkish 
bath comprises a suite of three rooms: the first — the ham- 
mam — is a square apartment, chiefly constructed of marble, 
and termxinating in a kind of cupola, studded with a number 
of glass bells, through which the light enters. A deep reser- 
voir, attached to the outer wall, with an opening into the 
bath, contains the water, half of which is heated by a furnace 
built under it. A number of pipes, attached to the furnace, 
circulate through the walls ot the bath and throw great heat 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 151 

into it. One or two graceful fountains conduct the water 
from the reservoir, and on each side of the fountain is a low 
wooden platform, which serves as a seat for the bather, who 
sits cross-legged and undergoes a long and complicated pro- 
cess of washing and scrubbing, with a variety of other toilet 
arrangements too numerous to mention. 

The second room — called the saouklous — is constructed 
very much in the same style as the first, but is smaller, and 
has no furniture but a marble platform, upon which mat- 
tresses and cushions are placed for the use of those who wish 
to repose between intervals of bathing, or do not wish to 
face the cooler temperature of the hammam oda. This room 
is furnished with sofas, on which the bathers rest and dress 
after quitting the bath. 

Turkish women are very fond of their bath, and are capable 
of remaining for hours together in that hot and depressing 
atmosphere. They smoke cigarettes, eat fruits and sweets 
and drink sherbet, and finally, after all the blood has rushed 
to their heads, and their faces are crimson, they wrap them- 
selves in soft burnouses, and pass into the third or outer 
chamber, where they repose on a luxurious couch until their 
system shakes off part of the heat and languor that the abuse 
of these baths invariably produces. A bath being an indis- 
pensable appendage to every house, one is to be found in 
even the poorest Turkish dwelling 

The public baths, resorted to by all classes, are to be found 
in numbers in every town. They are fine buildings, exact 
copies of the Roman baths, many of which are still in exist- 
ence, defying the march oi centuries and the work of decay. 



152 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Like the home baths, they consist of three spacious apart- 
ments. The outer bathroom is a large stone building lighted 
by a cupola, but the women, not having the same privileges, 
are obliged to bring their own rugs, upon which they deposit 
their clothes, tied up in bundles, when they enter, and repose 
and dress upon them on coming out of the bath. A fountain 
of cold water is considered indispensable in this apartment, 
and in the basin surrounding it may be seen watermelons 
floating about, placed there to cool while their owners are 
in the inner bath. The bath itself contains a number of 
small rooms, each of which can be separately engaged by a 
party, or used in common with the other bathers. 

Turkish women, independently of their home baths, 
must resort at least once a month to the public hammam. 
They like it for many reasons, but principally because it is 
the only place where they can meet to chat over the news of 
the day and their family affairs. 

Some of these baths, especiahy the mineral ones at 
Broussa, are of the finest description. Gurgutly, containing 
the sulphurous springs, is renowned for the remarkable effi- 
cacy of its waters, its immense size, and the elegant and cu- 
rious style of its architecture. It comprises two very large 
apartments, one for the use of the bathers previous to their 
entering the bath; the other, the bath itself. This is an 
immense room, with niches all round containing fountains in 
the form of sliells, which receive part of the running stream ; 
in front of these are wooden platforms, on which the bathers 
collect for the purpose of \vashing their heads and scrubbing 
their bodies On the left as you enter stands an immense 



1 




KIOSK OF THE RHVIHW 



INTERIOR OF MOSQUE, SOLIMAN. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 155 

marble basin, seven feet in length and three in width, into 
which the mother stream gushes with impetuous force. From 
this it runs into a large round basin about ten feet in depth, 
in which dozens of women and children may be seen swim- 
ming, an exhausting process, owing to the high temperature 
of the water and its sulphurous qualities. 

COFFEE HOUSES. 

Coffee houses are to be met with everywhere, and are very 
numerous in the towns. The Turks resort to them when 
they leave their homes early in the morning, to take a cup of 
coffee and smoke a nargile before going to business. In the 
evening, too, the}' step in to have a chat with their neighbors 
and hear the news of the day. Turkish newspapers have 
become pretty common of late in these quiet rendezvous, and 
are to be found in the most unpretending ones. Few of 
these establishments possess an inviting exterior, or can 
boast any arrangements with regard to comfort or accommo- 
dation; a few mats placed upon benches, and a number of 
common osier-seated chairs and stools are the seats afforded 
in them. Small gardens may be found attached to some, 
while others atone for the deficiencies of their interiors by the 
lovely situations they occupy. 

A KIOSK. 

A kiosk is indispensable to the pleasure of a Turk. The 
imperial and other kiosks on the Bosphorus are miniature 
palaces, luxuriously furnished, whose elegance and beauty 



156 STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 

are only equalled by the incomparable advantages of their 
situation on the richest of soils and beneath the sunniest of 
skies. Kiosks may be situated anywhere, and may comprise 
a suit of apartments or be limited to one ; they are light and 
airy in style, generally commanding a fine prospect, often 
floored with marble, and containing a shadravan or sculp- 
tured fountain playing in the midst; a range of sofas runs all 
round the walls, on which the Turk loves to sit for hours to- 
gether, lost in meditation, and in the fumes of his inseparable 
companion, the nargile. 

CLUBS. 

Clubs, reading-rooms, or other resorts for social and intel- 
lectual improvements, are quite unknown among the Turks. 
Their place is, however, filled to some extent by the old-fash- 
ioned cafe for the Osmanli of mature age, and by the casinos 
and other places of the same doubtful character for "'La. 
jeune Turquie," who faute de mieux resort thither to enjoy 
the delights of taking their raki, or sometimes ruining them- 
selves by indulging in rouge et noir or other games of 
chance which they do not understand, and, to do them jus- 
tice, do not, as a rule, largely indulge in. 

A TURKISH KITCHEN. 

A Turkish kitchen is a spacious building, roughly con- 
structed, and, in the dwellings of the rich, generally de- 
tached from the rest of the house. Great attention is paid to 
keeping the culinary utensils, which are all of copper, clean 



STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 157 

and bright; but order and neatness in other respects are en- 
tirely disregarded, and there are few of those arrangements 
that render an EngHsh kitchen such a pleasant and interest- 
ing apartment, A tin lamp, such as has been used from time 
immemorial, is hung at one side of the chimney, and gives 
but a very dim light. 

MEALS. 

The Turks have two meals a day: one, kahvalto, between 
lo and II, and the other, yemek, at sunset. One or two 
cups of black coftee is all they take in the early morning. The 
dinner is brought into the dining-room of the haremlik on a 
large circular copper tray, and deposited on the floor ; a simi- 
lar tray is placed on a stool and covered with a common calico 
cloth. On this are placed a number of saucers containing 
hors d'oeuvres, a salt cellar, a pepper box and a portion of 
bread for each person. A leather pad occupies the centre, 
on which the dishes are placed in succession, and the com- 
pany sit cross-legged round the tray. Dinner is announced 
by a slave; the hostess leads the way into the Yemek-oda, or 
dining-room. Servants approach and pour water over the 
hands from Ibriks, or curious ewers, holding Leyens, or 
basins, to catch it as it falls ; others ofifer towels as napkins to 
use during the meal. As many as eight or ten persons can 
sit round these trays. The hostess, if she be of higher rank 
than her guests, is the first to dip her spoon into the soup 
tureen, politely inviting them to do the same ; if her rank be 
inferior to that of anyone of her guests, they are invited to 
take precedence. 



158 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

It is considered a mark of great attention on the part of the 
hostess to pick up the daintiest bit of food and place it in the 
mouth of any of her guests. The way in which coffee is 
served is one of the prettiest of the old Turkish customs. All 
the slaves and attendants enter the rooms and stand at the 
lower end with folded arms. The coftee-pot and cup-stands 
of gold or silver are placed on a tray held by the Kalfa, or 
head servant; attached to the tray is an oval crimson cloth, 
richly worked with gold. The coffee is poured out, and the 
cups offered separately by the other servants, who again re- 
tire to the lower end of the room till they are required to take 
the empty cups. 

A SEKAGLIO. 

A seraglio, like all Moslem dwellings, is divided into harem- 
lik and selamlik. The former is reserved for the family life 
of the Sultan and his women ; the latter is accessible to officials 
who come to transact State business with his Highness. 

It will be of interest to know something about the annual 
outlay of the Sultan. An account published of the imperial 
expenditure of the Sultan Abdul-Aziz was $10,000,000. The 
palace contained 5500 ser\^ants of both sexes. The kitchens 
alone required 300 functionaries, and the stables 400. There 
were also about 400 caikjis, or boatmen, 400 musicians and 
200 attendants who had the charge of the menageries and 
aviaries. Three hundred guards were employed for the va- 
rious palaces and kiosks and about 100 porters. The harem, 
besides this, contained 1200 female slaves. 

In the selamlik might be counted from 1000 to 1500 ser- 



,ST07?r OF TURKEY AY7) ARMENIA. 159 

vants of different kinds The Sultan had twenty-five "aides 
de camp," seven chamberlains, six secretaries, and at least 
150 other functionaries, divided into classes, each having its 
special employment. 

One is entrusted with the care of the imperial wardrobe, 
another with the pantry, a third with the making and serving 
of the coffee, and a fourth with the pipes and cigarettes. 

There were also numberless attendants who carried either 
a torch, or a jug of perfumed water for ablutions after a re- 
past. There is a chief barber, a superior attendant who has 
special charge of the games of backgammon and draughts, 
another superintends the braziers, and there are at least fifty 
kavasses and 100 eunuchs; and the harem has also at its ser- 
vice a hundred servants for going on errands and doing com- 
missions in Stamboul and Pera. 

Altogether, the total number of the employes of the palace 
is about 5500. But this is not all; these servants employ also 
other persons beneath them, so that every day 7000 persons 
are fed at the expense of the palace. 

The wages of employes included in the civil list amounted 
to a total of $1,000,000, exclusive of the salaries of aides de 
camp, doctors, musicians, etc., which were paid by the Min- 
ister of War. 

The stables of the palace contained 600 horses, whose prov- 
ender, according to the estimates of the most reasonable 
contractors, cost three Turkish liras per month, making a 
total of about $100,000. 

More than 200 carriages of every description were kept in 
the palace. These were for the most part presents from the 



160 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Viceroy of Egypt; but the expenses of the 150 coachmen and 
footmen, with their rich Hveries, are paid by a civil hst ; also 
the harness-maker's accounts, and other items of this depart- 
ment. 

The annual expenditure for pictures, porcelain, etc., was 
never less than $700,000 ; and in one year Sultan Abdul-Aziz 
spent $600,000 for pictures only. As for jewels, the pur- 
chases attained the annual sum of $500,000, and the expenses 
of the harem for presents, dresses, etc., absorbed $800,000 
per annum. 

Besides these items, the allowance to the mother and 
sisters of the Sultan, to his nephews and nieces, and to the 
heir-apparent amounted to $908,800. This gives a total of at 
least $6,500,000 annually. To this must be added $400,000 
for keeping in repair the existing imperial kiosks and pal- 
aces, and $2,900,000 for the construction of new ones. The 
imperial revenue in the civil list was $6,400,000. The ex- 
penditure was really over $10,000,000. 

The haremlik of the seraglio contains from 1000 to 1500 
women, divided among the Sultan's household; that of his 
mother, the Valide Sultana, and those of the princes. 

This vast host of women of all ranks, ages and conditions 
are, without exception, of slave extraction, originating from 
the cargoes of slaves that yearly find their way to Turkey 
from Circassis, Georgia, Abyssinia and Arabia, in spite of the 
prohibition of the slave trade. These slaves are sold in their 
native land by unnatural relations, or torn from their homes 
by hostile tribes, to be subsequently handed over to the slave 
dealers, and brought by them into the capital and other large 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 163 

towns. All these women are the offspring of semi-barbarous 
parents, who seldom scruple to sell their own flesh and blood. 
Born in the hovel of the peasant, or the hut of the fierce 
chieftain, their first condition is one of extreme ignorance 
and barbarism.. Possessed with the knowledge of no written 
language, with a confused idea of religion mixed up with 
the superstitious practices that ignorance engenders, poorly 
clad, portionless and unprotected, they are drawn into the 
seraglio by chains of bondage, and go under the denomina- 
tion of Adjemis (rustics). No matter how low had been 
their starting-point, their future career depends solely upon 
their own good fortune. Their training in the seraglio is 
regulated by the vocations for which they are destined ; those 
chosen to fulfil domestic positions, such as negresses and 
others not highly favored by najture, are put under the direc- 
tion of kalfas, or head servants, and taught their respective 
duties. 

The training they receive depends upon the career to 
which their age, personal attractions and color entitle them. 
The young and beautiful, wdiose lot has a great chance of 
being connected wath that of his Imperial Majest}^, or some 
high dignitary to whom she may be presented by the Valide 
or the Sultan as odaHsk or wife, receives a veneer composed 
of the formalities of Turkish etiquette, elegance of deport- 
ment, the art of beautifying the person, dancing, singing, or 
playing on some musical instrument. To the young and 
willing, instruction in the.rudiments of the Turkish language 
are given ; they are also initiated in the simpler forms of Mo- 



164 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

hammedanism taught to women, such as the Namaz and 
other prayers and the observance of the fasts and feasts. 

Ottoman Sultans, with two exceptions, have never been 
known to marry; the mates of the Sultan, chosen from among 
the ranks of slaves already mentioned, or from among those 
that are presented to him, can only be admitted to the honor- 
able title of wife when they have borne children. The first 
wife is called Bash Kadin Ef¥endi, the second Ikinji Kadin 
Effendi, and so on in numerical order up to the seventh wife 
(should there be so many), who would be called Yedinji 
Kadin Effendi 

The slaves that have borne children beyond this number 
bear the title of Hanoums, and rank after the Kadin Efifendis; 
their children are considered legitimate, and rank with the 
other princes and princesses. To these two classes must be 
added a third, that of favorites, who, having no right to the 
title of Kadin Effendi or Hanoum, are dependent solely 
upon the caprice of their master or the influence they may 
have acquired over him for the position they hold in the im- 
perial household. 

Under this system every slave in the seraglio, from the 
scullery maid to the fair and delicate beauty purchased for 
her personal charms, may aspire to attaining the rank of 
wife, odalisk, or favorite. The mother of the late Sultan 
Abdul- Aziz is said to have performed the most menial offices 
in the establishment. When thus engaged one day she hap- 
pened to attract the attention of her imperial master, Sultan 
Mahmoud II, who distinguished her with every mark of 
attention, and raised her to the rank of Bash Kadin. Gen- 



STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 16S 

erally speaking, however, the wives of sultans are select 
beauties, who are offered to him yearly by the nation on the 
feast of Kandil Ghedjessi; others are gifts of the Valide and 
other persons wishing to make an offering to the Sultan. 

When one of these odalisks has succeeded in gaining the 
good graces of the Sultan and attracted his attention, he calls 
up the Ikinji Hasnadar Ousta, and notifies to her his desire 
of receiving the favored beauty into his apartment. The 
slave being informed of this, is bathed, dressed with great 
care and elegance, and introduced in the evening to the im- 
perial presence. Should she be so fortunate as to find favor 
in the eyes of her lord and master, she is on the next morning 
admitted into a separate room reserved for slaves of this 
category, which she occupies during the time needful for 
ascertaining what rank she is in future to take in the seraglio. 
Should the arrival of a child raise her to that of Kadin Effendi 
or hanoum, a Daire or special apartment is set apart for her. 
Those w4io are admitted to the Sultan's presence, and have 
no claims to the rights of maternity, do not present them- 
selves a second time, unless requested to do so, nor can they 
lay claim to any further attention, although their persons, like 
those of the Kadin Effendi and haroums, become sacred, and 
the contraction of marriage with another person is unlawful. 
The distinction between the favored and the discarded fav- 
orite is made known by her abstaining from going to the 
hammam. 

TURKISH PEASANTS. 

The Turkish peasants inhabiting the rural districts of Bui- 



166 STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

garia, Macedonia, Epirus and Thessaly, although the best, 
most industrious and useful of the Sultan's Mohammedan 
subjects, everywhere evince signs of poverty, decrease in 
numbers and general deterioration. This fact is evident even 
to the mere traveler, from the wretchedness and poverty- 
stricken appearance of Turkish villages, with their houses 
mostly tumbling to pieces. The inhabitants, unable to resist 
the drain upon them in time of war, when the youngest and 
most vigorous men are taken away for military service, often 
abandon their dwellings and retire to more populous villages 
or towns; the property thus abandoned goes to ruin, and the 
fields in the same manner become waste. 

The Turkish peasant is a good, quiet and submissive sub- 
ject, who refuses neither to furnish his Sultan with troops, 
nor tD pay his taxes, so far as in him lies; but he is poor, ig- 
norant, helpless and improvident to an almost incredible 
degree. At the time of recruiting, he will complain bitterly 
of his hard lot, but go all the same to serve his time; he 
groans under the heavy load of taxation, gets imprisoned, 
and is not released until he manages to pay his dues. 

He is generally discontented with his government, of 
which he openly complains, and still more with its agents, 
with whom he is brought into closer contact; but still the 
idea of rebelling against either, giving any, signs of disaffec- 
tion, or attempting to resist the law, never gets any hold upon 
him. His relations w4th his Christian neighbors vary greatly 
with the locality and the personal character of both. In 
some places Christian and Turkish peasants, in times of 
peace, live in tolerable harmony; in others a continual war- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 167 

fare of complaints on one side and acts of oppression on the 
other is kept up. 

The Turkish peasant is well-built and strong, and pos- 
sesses extraordinary power of endurance. His mode of liv- 
ing is simple, his habits sober; unlike the Christians of his 
class, he has no dance, no village feast, and no music, but a 
kind of drum or tambourine, to vary the monotony of his 
Hfe. His cup of coffee and his chibouk contain for him all 
the sweets of existence. The coffee is taken before the labors 
of the day are begun, and again in the evening at the cafine. 
His work is often interrupted in order to enjoy the chibouk, 
which he smokes crouched under a tree or wall. His house 
is clean, but badly built; cold in winter and hot in summer, 
possessing little in the way of furniture but bedding, mats, 
rugs and kitchen utensils. He is worse clad than the Chris- 
tian peasant, and his wife and children still worse; yet the 
women are content with their lot, and in their ignorance and 
helplessness do not try, like the Christian women, to better 
their condition by their individual exertions; they are irre- 
proachable and honest in their conduct, and capable of en- 
during great trials. Some are very pretty; they keep much 
at home ; the young girls seldom gather together for fun and 
enjoyment except at a wedding or circumcision ceremony, 
when they sing and play together, while the matrons gossip 
over their private affairs and those of their neighbors. The 
girls are married young to peasants of their own or some 
neighboring village. Polygamy is rare among Turkish 
peasants, and they do not often indulge in the luxury of 
divorce. 



168 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

On the whole, the Turkish peasant, though not a model of 
virtue, is a good sort of man, and would be much better if he 
had not the habit in times of national trouble to take upon 
him the name of Bashi-Bazouk, and to transform himself 
into a ruffian. 

TURKISH TRADESPEOPLE. 

The life led by the Turkish tradespeople is extremely mo- 
notonous and brightened by no intellectual pleasures. The 
shopkeeper, on leaving his house at dawn, goes to the cofifee- 
house, takes his small cup of coffee, smokes his pipe, chats 
with the habitues of the place, and then proceeds to his busi- 
ness, which is carried on with Oriental languor throughout 
the day. At sunset he again resorts to the coffee-house to 
take the same refreshment and enjoy the innovation of hav- 
ing a newspaper read to him — a novelty now much appreci- 
ated by the lower classes. He then returns to the bosom of 
his family in time for the evening meal. His home is clean, 
though very simple ; his wife and daughters are ignorant, and 
never taught a trade by which they might earn anything. 
Embroidery, indispensable in a number of useless articles 
that serve to figure in the trousseau of every Turkish girl, 
and latterly coarse needle and crochet-work, fill up part of 
the time, while the mothers attend to their household affairs. 
The young children are sent to the elementary school, and 
the boys either go to school or are apprenticed to some trade. 

TURKISH LADIES. 

A Turkish lady is certainly shut up in a harem, and there 




A TURKISH CART. 



DAMASCUS-GROUP OF TOMBS OF DAMASQUINS EMIR. 



8T0RT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 171 

can be no doubt that she is at Hberty to indulge in the above- 
mentioned kixuries should she feel so disposed; she has pos- 
sibly, at times, to submit to being locked up, but the key is 
applied to the outer gates, and is left in the keeping of the 
friendly eunuch. Besides, woman is said to have a will of 
her own, and "where there is a will there is a way" is a prov- 
erb to which Turkish ladies are no strangers. In one sense 
she may not have so much freedom as American women 
have, but in many others she possesses more. In her home 
she is perfect mistress of her time and of her property, which 
she can dispose of as she thinks proper. Should she have 
cause of complaint against anyone, she is allowed to be very 
open-spoken, holds her ground, and fights her own battles 
with astonishing coolness and decision. 

Turkish ladies appreciate to the full as much as their hus- 
bands the virtues of the indispensable cup of coffee and cigar- 
ette; this is their first item in the day's programme. The 
hanoums may next take a bath, the young ladies wash at the 
abtest hours ; the slaves when they can find time. The han- 
oum will then attend to her husband's wants, bring him his 
pipe and coffee, his slippers and pelisse. While smoking, 
he will sit on the sofa, whilst his wife occupies a lower posi- 
tion near him, and the slaves roll up the bedding from the 
floor. If the gentleman be a government functionary, the 
official bag will be brought in, and he will look over his docu- 
ments, examining some, affixing his seal to others, saying a 
few words in the intervals to his wife, who always addresses 
him in a ceremonious manner with great deference and re- 
spect. The children wiii then trot in in their gedjliks, with 



172 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

their hair uncombed, to be caressed, and ask for money with 
which to buy sw^eets and cakes. The custom of giving pence 
to children daily is so prevalent that it is practiced even by 
the poor. 

The children, after an irregular breakfast, are sent to 
school or allowed to roam about the house; the effendi pro- 
ceeds to perform his out-of-door toilet, and leaves the harem- 
lik, when the female portion of the establishment, freed from 
the pleasure or obligation of attending to his wants, begin 
the day's occupation. If this should include any special or 
unusual household work, such as preserve-making, washing 
or ironing, or general house cleaning, the lady, be she of the 
highest position, will take part in it with the slaves. This is 
certainly not necessary, for she has plenty of menials, but is 
done in order to fill up the day, many hours of which neces- 
sarily hang heavily on her hands when not enlivened by visit- 
ing or being visited. In the capital, however, less of this 
kind of employment is indulged in by the fashionable han- 
oum^s, who are trying to create a taste for European occupa- 
tions, by learning music, foreign languages and fine needle 
work. The time for dressing is irregular. A lady may 
think proper to do her hair and make herself tidy for lunch- 
eon, or she may remain in her gedjlik and slippers all day. 
This fashion of receiving visitors en neglige is not consid- 
ered at all pecuHar, unless the visit has been announced be- 
forehand. 

Visiting and promenading, the principal amusements of 
Turkish ladies, are both affairs of very great importance. 
Permission has previously to be asked from the husband. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 173 

who, if liberally disposed, freely grants it; but if jealous and 
strict, he will disapprove of seeing his family often out of 
doors. When a walk or drive is projected, the children all 
begin to clamor to go with their mother. Scarcely is this 
question settled by coaxing or giving them money, than an- 
other arises, as to which of the slaves are to be allowed to go. 
Tears, prayers and even little quarrels and disturbances fol- 
low, until the mistress finally selects her party. The details 
of the toilets are very numerous ; the face has to be blanched, 
then rouged, the eyebrows and lashes to be blackened with 
surme, and a variety of other little coquetries resorted to re- 
quiring time and patience before the final adjustment of the 
yashmak and feridge. 

Then comes the scramble for places in the carriage; the 
hanoums naturally seat themselves first, the rest squeeze 
themselves in, and sit upon each other's knees. It is wonder- 
ful to see how well they manage this close packing, and how 
long they can endure the uncomfortable postures in which 
they are fixed. 

If the excursion is solely for visiting, the occupants of the 
carriages make the best of the time and liberty by coquetting 
with the grooms and agas in attendance, should these be 
young and handsome, and sending salaams to the passers-by, 
mingled with laughter and frolic. But when the excursion 
has a picnic in prospective, or a long drive into the country, 
the gayety and fun indulged in is bewildering; and the han- 
oums can only be compared to a flock of strange birds sud- 
denly let loose from their cages, not knowing what to make 
of their new freedom. Flirting, smoking, eating fruits and 



.M 



174' STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

sweets, walking about, running, or lounging on the carpets 
they bring with them, varied by music and singing, fill the 
day. They usually set out early and return before sunset in 
time to receive their master on his visit to the harem before 
dinner. When this meal is over, the company, comfortably 
dressed in their neglige costume, indulge in coffee and cigar- 
ettes, and the events of the day are discussed. The ladies 
then retire to rest at an early hour, and rise the next day to 
go through the same routine. 

ISLAM IN TURKEY. 

The religion of the Turks is properly the orthodox or 
Sunni form of Islam, the doctrines of which are of special 
interest, and we describe them here. 

MOHAMMEDANISM OR ISLAMISM. 

The Mohammedans do not themselves acknowledge the 
name. They call their religion Islam, w^hich means "full 
submission to God,'' and themselves Moslems, or ''the people 
of the Islam." Mohammed designated himself as the re- 
storer of the pure religion revealed by God to Abraham. As 
the messenger of God, his pagan countrymen to leave their 
idols and adopt the worship of the one true God; the Jews, 
to exchange the law of Moses for the new and final revela- 
tions given to him; the Christians, to cease worshipping 
Christ as God, as inconsistent with monotheism and with the 
true doctrine of Christ himself. The doctrines of Moham- 
medanism may, in large measure, be traced to the national 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 175 

religion 'of the Arabs before Mohammed, to those forms of 
Judaism and Christianity which existed in Arabia in his time, 
and to those traditions and usages which were the common 
heritage of all branches of the Semitic race. 

The fundamental doctrine of Islamism, and the only one 
which is absolutely necessary to profess in order to be con- 
sidered a Moslem, is : There is but one God, and Mohammed 
is his apostle. The idea of God held by Mohammedans does 
not dififer essentially from the Christian, except that they re- 
ject entirely the doctrine of the Trinity. They believe that a 
great number of prophets have been divinely commissioned 
at various times, among whom six were sent to proclaim new 
laws and dispensations, viz : Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, 
Jesus and Mohammed. To the prophets were revealed cer- 
tain scriptures inspired by God. All of these have perished 
except four : the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospel, and the 
Koran. The first three, they maintain, have been falsified 
and mutilated, and the Koran supersedes them all. Mo- 
hammed is the last prophet, and the Koran the final revela- 
tion. The Mohammedans regard Christ with a reverence 
second only to that which they pay to Mohammed, and blas- 
phemy of his name is punishable with death. But they 
deny that he is God or the son of Son, though they consider 
his birth miraculous. They also deny that he was crucified, 
believing that some other person suffered in his place, while 
he was taken up to God. He will come again upon the 
earth to destroy Antichrist, and his coming will be one of the 
signs of the approach of the last judgment. The Moslems 
believe in the existence of angels with pure and subtile bodies 



176 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

created of fire, who have no distinction of sex, neither eat nor 
drink, and are employed in adoring and praising God, inter- 
ceding for mankind, keeping a record of human actions, and 
performing various other services. Four are iield by God 
in pecuHar favor: Gabriel, who is employed in writing 
down the divine decrees, and by whom the Koran was re- 
vealed at various times to Mohammed ; Michael, the especial 
guardian of the Jews ; Azrael, the "angel of death," who separ- 
ates the souls of men from their bodies, and Israfil, who will 
sound the trumpet at the resurrection. There is also a lower 
class of beings than the angels, like them made of fire, but of 
a coarser nature, called jinns (generally rendered genii), who 
eat and drink, and are subject to death. Some of these are 
good, some evil. The chief of the latter is Eblis, or "despair," 
who was once an angel named Azazel, but who, having re- 
fused to pay homage to Adam, w^as rejected by God, and 
wanders over the earth until the resurrection. These genii 
have various names, as peri (fairies), div (giants), fates, etc. 
In regard to the state of man during the time between death 
and the resurrection, many different opinions prevail. There 
are also different views as to the last judgment ; but the essen- 
tial point agreed upon by all is that men will have awarded 
to them that condition of happiness or misery to which God 
shall judge them entitled by their conduct and belief during 
this life. The time of the resurrection is known only to God ; 
its approach will be indicated by certain signs, among which 
will be the decay of faith among men, wars, seditions, tumults, 
the advancement of the meanest men to the highest dignities, 
an ecHpse, the rising of the sun in the west, and numerous 



ST0R7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 1-79 

other portents. After the judgment all must pass over the 
bridge Al-Sirat, which is finer than a hair, sharper than a 
sword, and beset on either sides with thorns. The good will 
pass over easily and speedily; the wicked will fall headlong 
into hell. The delights of heaven are for the most part sen- 
sual, made up of pleasures especially suited to each of the 
senses, while the torments of hell consist chiefly in the ex- 
tremes of heat and cold. The Moslems hold that all who 
believe in the unity of God will finally be released from pun- 
ishment and enter Paradise. Those who deny the absolute 
unity of God, idolators and hypocrites, will suffer eternally. 
To hypocrites they assign the lowest place in hell. They be- 
lieve in the absolute foreknowledge and predestination of all 
things by God, and, at the same time, in the responsibility of 
man for his conduct and belief. Their practical reHgion, 
which they call din, chiefly insists upon four things: ist, puri- 
fication and prayer, which they regard as together making 
one rite; 2d, almsgiving; 3d, fasting; 4th, the pilgrimage to 
Mecca. Prayer must be preceded by ablution; cleanliness 
is regarded as a religious duty, without which prayer would 
be ineffectual. The Moslems pray five times each day : soon 
after sunset (not exactly at sunset, for fear they should be 
considered sun-worshippers), at nightfall (generally about 
an hour and one-quarter after sunset), at daybreak, near 
noon, and in the afternoon. The times of prayer are an- 
nounced by the muezzins (mueddzins) from the minarets of 
the mosques. In praying, the behever must turn his face 
toward Mecca, and the wall of the mosque nearest that city is 
marked by a niche. Twice during the night the muezzins 



180 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

also call to prayer for those who wish to perform extra devo- 
tions. Prayer may be said in any clean place, but on Friday 
they must be said in the mosque. Women are not forbidden 
to enter the mosque, but they never do so when the men are 
at their devotions. Before prayer all costly and sumptuous 
apparel must be laid aside. Almsgiving was formerly of two 
kinds: legal, called tzekah, and voluntary, called sadakah. 
The former was in reality a tax paid to the sovereign, and by 
him distributed as he saw fit ; it has long since fallen into dis- 
use. The sadakah consists of cattle, money, corn, fruits and 
wares sold. It is given once a year, and generally amounts 
to about 2^ per cent, of the stock on hand ; but no alms are 
due unless the stock amounts to a certain quantity, nor un- 
less the articles have been in the owner's possession for 
eleven months. At the end of the fast of Ramadan every 
Moslem is expected to give alms if he is able for himself and 
each member of his family — a measure of wheat, rice or other 
provisions. The Moslems also lay great stress upon fasting. 
During the whole of the month Ramadan they fast from the 
rising to the setting of the sun ; they neither eat nor drink nor 
indulge in any other physical gratification. They observe 
this fast with great rigor, but certain classes of persons to 
whom the fast would be physically injurious are excused from 
its observance. There are other days during which fasting is 
regarded as specially meritorious though not obligatory, 
and fasting at any time is regarded as peculiarly acceptable 
to God. The pilgrimage to Mecca, called hadji, is a relic of 
the ancient idolatrous religion which Mohammed desired to 
do away ^vith, but which was too deeply rooted in the habits 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 181 

and interests of the people to be abolished. Hence he sanc- 
tioned it, and made it obligatory, having first destroyed the 
idols in the temple and introduced new regulations. All 
Moslems, men or women, should at least once during their 
lives, provided they are able, make the pilgrimage to Mecca. 
The duty may be performed by a substitute, in which case the 
whole merit redounds to the principal. He who has per- 
formed this pilgrimage is entitled to prefix to his name the 
word hadji. Of late years the number of pilgrims has greatly 
fallen off. The Moslems regard the Koran not only as the 
rule of their religious, but also of their civil and social life. 
Before the time of Mohammed, it was not uncommon among 
the Arabs to put to death their female children. This prac- 
tice was forbidden by him. The following things are also 
forbidden in the Koran: eating of blood, or the flesh of 
swine, or of any animal that dies of itself, or has been stran- 
gled or killed by accident or by another beast, or has been 
slain as a sacrifice to an idol; playing games of chance, 
whether with or without a wager; the drinking of wine or of 
any inebriating liquor (but some construe this prohi- 
bition as only applicable to their excessive use, while 
a few of the very strict construe it as applying to opium., 
bang and even coffee and tobacco); the taking of in- 
terest upon money lent, even when the loan is made to a per- 
son of different religion ; divination and various other super- 
stitious practices. Murder seems to be regarded by the 
Koran as a crime against individuals rather than against 
society ; hence it was punishable with death or a pecuniary 
fine, at the option of the family of the murdered man. But 



182 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

at present in the Turkish Empire murder is punished with 
death, and commutation by fine is not permitted. If a be- 
Hever kills another accidentally, the slayer must pay a fine, 
and redeem a beUever from slavery. The punishment for 
theft is cutting off the hand, but in modern times this has 
generally fallen into disuse, and the bastinado or imprison- 
ment has been substituted. Polygamy existed among all 
the Semitic nations previous to the time of Mohammed, and 
he restricted rather than extended it. While claiming for 
himself special privileges in regard to his domestic relations, 
asserting that they were allowed him by the direct permission 
of God, he limited the number of wives which a true believer 
might take to four. 

Aside from the domestic relations, the ethics of the Mo- 
hammedan rehgion are of the highest order. Pride, cal- 
umny, revengefulness, avarice, prodigality and debauchery 
are condemned throughout the Koran ; while trust in God and 
submission to His will, patience, modesty, forebearance, love 
ot peace, sincerity, truthfulness, frugality, benevolence, lib- 
erality — indeed, aside from the differences of opinion in re- 
gard to theological subjects, all those qualities which the 
Anglo-Saxon race have idealized under the term "Christian 
gentleman" are everywhere insisted upon. 

The inquiry has often been made, "What part of the Koran 

promises Paradise to the triumphant Mohammedan?" I 

make the best quotation possible as an answer: 

"The whole earth will be as one loaf of bread, which God 
will reach to them like a cake; for meat they will have the ox, 
Balam, and the fish, Nun, the lobes of whose livers will 
sufifice 70,000 men. Every believer will have 80,000 ser- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 183 

vants and seventy-two girls of Paradise, besides his own for- 
mer wives, if he should wish for them, and a large tent of 
pearls, jacinths and emeralds; 300 dishes of gold shall be set 
before each guest at once, and the last morsel shall be as 
grateful as the first. Wine will be permitted, and will flow 
copiously, without inebriating. The righteous will be 
clothed in the most precious silks and gold, and will be 
crowned with crowns of the most resplendent pearls and 
jewels. If they desire children, they shall beget them, and 
see them grow up within an hour. Besides the ravishing 
songs of the angel Israfil, and the daughters of Paradise, the 
very trees will, by the rustling of their boughs, the clanging 
of bells suspended from them, and the clashing of their fruits, 
which are pearls and emeralds, make sweetest music." 

The Ordinances of the Mohammedan faith are strictly ob- 
served wherever the Prophet is accepted. A Mohammedan, 
when the time arrives for his prayer, has no business with 
worldly affairs until his prayer is ended. To him no earthly 
business can compare with the duty of prayer. 

The first chapter of the Koran is a prayer. It is a prayer 
which is held in great veneration by the Mohammedans. It 
is considered the quintessence of the Koran. It is often re- 
peated. It is the Lord's Prayer of the Moslem. There has 
been much discussion as to its recondite meaning, for, be it 
known, that there have been many contentious theologians 
in the Orient ever since the time of the early fathers. The 
fathers defined closely the true meaning of certain words and 
phrases upon which an eternity of happiness or misery de- 
pended. This prayer is a sample of the very best meaning 
of this wonderful Mahomet : . 

"Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures! The most 
merciful, the King of the Day of Judgment! Thee do we 
worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the 



184 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

right way, in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gra- 
cious, not of those ag'ainst whom Thou art incensed nor of 
those who go astray." 

The foregoing are the words of the Moslem common 
prayer, without any of its wearisome repetitions, which pro- 
tract it to a great length. Some portions are repeated three, 
six and even nine times at each course. The same repetitions 
are to be found in our Christian Litanies. 

The prayer will remind the reader of the Psalms of David : 

''O God most high, there is no God but God. Praises be- 
long unto God. Let Thy name be exalted, O great God. I 
sanctify Thy name, O my God. I praise Thee ; Thy name is 
blessed. Thy grandeur is exalted, there is no other God but 
Thee. I flee to Thee against the stoned demon, in the name 
of God clement and merciful. Praise belongs to God, most 
clement and merciful. He is Sovereign of the Day of Judg- 
ment. We adore Thee, Lord, and we implore Thy assist- 
ance. Direct us in the path of salvation, in the path of those 
whom Thou loadest with Thy favors, of those who have not 
deserved Thine anger, and who are not of those who go 
astray. O God, hear him who praises Thee. O God, praises 
wait for Thee. O God, bestow Thy salutation of peace upon 
Mahomet, as Thou didst upon Ibrahim and the race of Ibra- 
him, and bless Mahomet and the race of Mahomet, as Thou 
didst bless Ibrahim and the race of Ibrahim. Praise, gran- 
deur and exaltation are in Thee and to Thee." 

The most solemn sight connected with any religious cer- 
emony that I have ever witnessed was the one upon which I 
looked from the gallery of St. Sophia. Below me were 
thousands of human beings in regular hues, all looking to- 
ward Mecca while they prayed. Not a single suppliant con- 
nected with this devotion failed to bow his head to the floor, 
as by one impulse, when the shrill chant of the priests died 
away among the pillars and in the dome of the cast temple. 




DANCING DKRVISHES. 



TURKISH LADIES. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 187 

Occasionally there was a pause, as between the summons and 
the judgment. 

The Turk has at least an outward show of piety. If he be 
a good Moslem, his life is regulated by his faith. He moves 
with a humility which belongs to a reflective mind. He may 
be rich and live in luxury within his konak or palace, but 
when he enters the mosque there is for him no worldly 
pomp. He is in the presence of the unseen God. He prays 
without ceasing, aligned with others, some of whom may be 
beggars, water-carriers or charcoal venders. Here he feels 
that he is but one of the atoms among the many which make 
up a remarkable and infinite congregation of souls. Cer- 
tainly such humility is in strange contrast with the compla- 
cent luxury of Western churches, with their richly-cushioned 
pews, their carved pulpits, their gilt-edged hymn-books and 
their sometimes pompous clergy. 

The call to prayer is a picturesque feature of this remark- 
able faith. Morning, noon and night that shrill cry echoes 
over these wonderful cities and waters : 

''Most High! There is no God but the one God. Ma- 
homet is the Prophet of God! Come to prayer! Come to 
the Temple of Life !'' 

''Fasting also is an observance of the Mohammedan. His 
Lent, from one moon to another, is kept with religious regard 
while the sun is above the horizon. "How often have I 
looked over and seen the wonderful beauty of Stamboul in 
that Ramazab season, when the mosques are burning their 
countless lamps, and from minaret to minaret there is a pro- 
fusion of brilliant lights! It is during this month that the 
worship of the Prophet is celebrated with a splendor only 
limited by Moslem skill in illumination. When the electric 
light shall appear in the East, to penetrate the dark places of 



188 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Stamboul and shed its refulgence through St. Sophia, Sulei- 
man and the other grand mosques and structures of the capi- 
tal — with their immense interiors filled with surging and 
kneehng forms and bowing foreheads — the splendors of the 
Roman ritual in St. Peter's and the glories of Westminster 
Abbe}^ and St. Isaacs will be eclipsed before those of Islam." 

The established church, so to speak, of Turkey is governed 
by the Ulema, or learned men trained in the mosques, often 
supported by pious endowments. The popular faith, on the 
other hand, is led by the various sects of dervishes, between 
whom and the Ulema there exists an unconquerable rivalry. 
Some accounts of these two parties is essential to any de- 
scription of the people of Turkey. 

The Ulema are the hereditary expounders of the Koran, to 
the traditional interpretation of which they rigidly adhere. 
They have nothing to say to the many innovations that time 
has shown to be needful in the religion of Mohammed, and 
they brand as heretics all who dififer a hair's-breadth from the 
old established line. The result of this uncompromising or- 
thodoxy has been that the Ulema, together with their subor- 
dinates the Softas (a sort of Moslem undergraduates), have 
managed to preserve an esprit de corps and a firm collected 
line of action that is without a parallel in Turkish parties. 

The order of Ulema is divided into three classes : the Ima- 
ma, or ministers of religion; the Muftis, doctors of the law, 
and the Kadis or Mollahs, judges. Each of these classes is 
subdivided into a number of others, according to the rank and 
functions of those that compose it. 

The imams, after passing an examination, are appointed by 
the Sheikh ul Islam to the ofifice of priests in the mosques. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 189 

The lixed pay they receive is small, about $35 or $40 per an- 
num. Some mosques have several imams. Their functions 
are to pronounce the prayer aloud and guide the ceremonies. 
The chief imam has precedence over the other imams, the 
muezzins (callers to prayer), the khatibs, hodjas and other 
servants of the mosque. 

A strange license of the Turkish law is that crime is not 
punished unless its actual commission is certified by eye- 
witnesses; this is the reason that evidence of crime com- 
mitted during the night is not admitted as vaHd by the laws 
of the country. The imams, under the pressure of this law, 
think twice before they give evidence ; nor do they much like 
the unpleasant duty of accompanying police inspections, from 
which they generally excuse themselves. 

The muftis, or doctors of the law, rank next; seated in the 
courts of justice, they receive the pleas, examine into the 
cases and explain them to the moUah, according to their 
merits or the turn they may wish to give to them. 

The mollahs or kadis form the next grade in the Ulema 
hierarchy. They are appointed by the Sheikh ul Islam, and 
are assisted in their functions by the muftis and other officials. 
The avarice and venality of this body of men are among the 
worst features of Turkish legislature. Few judges are free 
from the reproach of partiality and corruption. 

DERVISHES. 

Notwithstanding their vices, nothing can exceed the ven- 
eration in which the dervishes are held by the public, over 



190 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA, 

whom they exercise an irresistible influence. This influence 
is especially made use of in time of war, when a motley com- 
pany of sheikhs and fanatical dervishes join the army, and 
encourage the officers and men by rehearsing the benefits 
promised by the Prophet to all who fight or die for the true 
faith. The voices of these excited devotees may be heard 
crying, ''O ye victorious!" ''O ye martyrs!" or "Ya-llah!" 
Some of these men are fearful fanatics, who endeavor by 
every means in their power to stimulate the religious zeal of 
the troops and of the nation. Every word they utter is 
poison to public peace. 

It is impossible here to enter into details as to the consti- 
tution of the various dervish orders (of which there are many) 
or the tenets held by them, or the ceremonies of initiation and 
of worship. Still, a few words are necessary about the two 
or three leading orders of dervishes in Turkey. The most 
graceful are the Mevlevi, or revolving dervishes, with their 
sugar-loaf hats, long skirts and loose jubbes. Once or twice 
a week public service is performed at the Mevlevi Khane, to 
which spectators are admitted. The devotions begin by the 
recital of the usual namaz, after which the sheikh proceeds to 
his pistiki, or sheepskin mat, and, raising his hands, offers, 
with great earnestness, the prayer to the Pir, or spirit of the 
founder of the order, asking his intercession with God on 
behalf of the order. He then steps off his pistiki and bows 
his head with deep humility towards it, as if it were now occu- 
pied by his Pir; then, in slow and measured step, he walks 
three times round the Semar Khane, bowing to the right and 
loft with crossed toes as lie passes his seat, his subordinate^ 



^TORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 191 

following and doing the same. This part of the ceremony 
(called the Sultan Veled Devri) over, the sheikh stands on the 
pistiki with bowed head, while the brethren in the mutrib, or 
orchestra, chant a hymn in honor of the Prophet, followed by 
a sweet and harmonious performance on the flute. 

The Semar Zan, director of the performance, proceeds to 
the sheikh, wdio stands on the edge of his pistiki, and, after 
making a deep obeisance, w^alks to the centre of the hall, and 
gives a signal to the other brethren, who let fall their ten- 
nouris, take off their jubbes, and proceed in single file, with 
folded arms, to the sheikh, kiss his hand, receive in return a 
kiss on their hats, and there begin whirling round, using the 
left foot as a pivot w^hile they push themselves round with the 
right. Gradually the arms are raised upwards and then ex- 
tended outwards, the palm of the right hand being turned up 
and the left bent towards the floor. With closed eyes and 
heads reclining towards the right shoulder, they continue 
turning, muttering the inaudible zihr, saying, "Allah, Allah !" 
to the sound of the orchestra and the chant that accompanies 
it, ending with the exclamation, "O friend !" when the dancers 
suddenly cease to turn. The sheikh, still standing, again 
receives the obeisance of the brethren as they pass his pistiki, 
and the dance is renewed. When it is over, they resume their 
seats on the floor and are covered with their jubbes. The 
service ends with a prayer for the Sultan. The whole of the 
ceremony is extremely harmonious and interesting; the 
bright and variegated colors of the dresses, the expert and 
graceful way in which the dervishes spin round, bearing on 
their faces at the same time a look of deep humility and devo- 



192 ISTORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

tion, together with the dignified attitude and movements of 
the sheikh, combine to form a most impressive sight. 

HOWLING DERVISHES. 

Equally curious are the Rifai, or howling dervishes. They 
wear a mantle edged with green, a belt in which are lodged 
one or three big stones, to compress the hunger to which a 
dervish is liable, and a white felt hat, marked with eight 
grooves (terks), each denoting the renunciation of a cardinal 
sin. In their devotions, they become strangely excited, 
their limbs become frightfully contorted, their faces deadly 
pale; then they dance in the most grotesque manner, howling 
meanwhile; cut themselves with knives, swallow fire and 
swords, burn their bodies, pierce their ears, and finally 
swoon. A sacred word whispered by two elders of the order 
brings the unconscious men round, and their wounds are 
healed by the touch of the sheikh's hand, moistened from his 
mouth. It is strange and horrible to witness the ceremonies 
of this order; but in these barbarous performances the devout 
recognize the working of the Divine Spirit. 

PRAYERS. 

You can give no higher praise to a Turk than saying that 
he performs his five prayers a day. In right of this qualifica- 
tion, young men of no position and as little merit are often 
chosen as sons-in-law by pious people. A Turk of the old 
school is proud of his religion, and is never ashamed of let- 
ting you see it. So long as he can turn his face towards 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 195 

Mecca, he will say his prayers anywhere. The Turks like to 
say their namaz in public, that they may have praise of men ; 
and it is to be feared that a good deal of hypocrisy goes on in 
this matter. This, however, is on the decrease, because fewer 
Turks in all classes say their prayers or observe the outward 
forms of religion than formerly. This is no doubt partly due 
to the influence of "Young Turkey," though other causes are 
also at work. 

But the orthodox Turk must do more than observe the 
prayers. The fast of Ramazan is a very important part of 
his religious routine. Everyone knows this terrible month 
of day-fasting and night-fasting. It tells most severely on 
the poor, who keep it strictly, and are compelled to w^ork dur- 
ing the day exactly as w^hen not fasting. Women also of all 
classes observe the fast religiously. But there are very few 
among the higher officials, or the gentlemen who have en- 
rolled themselves under the banner of La Jeune Turquie, 
Avho take any notice of it, except in pubHc, where they are 
obliged to show outward respect to the prejudices of the 
people. 

This fast-month is a sort of revival-time to the Moslems. 
They are supposed to devote more time to the careful study 
of the Koran and to the minute practice of its ordinances. 
Charity, peacefulness, hospitality, almsgiving are among the 
virtues which they specially cultivate at this time, and though 
the theory is not put in practice to the letter, and hospitality 
not carried out as originally intended — ^the rich man standing 
at his door at sunset, bringing in and setting at his table all 



19G STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

the poor that happened to pass by, and sending them away 
with presents of money — it is still very largely practiced. 

THE SULTAN AT PRAYERS. 

The ceremony of attending mosque is never omitted, if the 
Sultan be alive. It matters not whether it hails or rains, 
whether there be an earthquake, a plague or a pestilence or 
personal sickness, this observance is one of the scrupulous 
duties of the Sultan, who is at the same time the absolute 
Caliph of the Faith. The prayer which he offers cannot be 
said by anyone else for him. It is a rehgious duty to be 
done by him in person. It is reckoned the most honorable 
of his functions and the greatest of all his privileges. To 
omit his appearance on that day would almost provoke a 
riot. 

This custom came into use in the year A. D. 1361. Then 
the reigning Sultan, Murad I, having offered to give evi- 
dence before the Mufti in a case in which one of his favorites 
was concerned, his testimony was rejected on the ground 
that, according to the law of the Koran, no person can be 
admitted as a witness in a religious court of justice who has" 
not joined in common prayer in the mosque. In acknowl- 
edgment of the justice of this decision, Murad proceeded, on 
the following Friday, in great state, to the mosque. He 
joined with the other worshippers, and performed his devo- 
tions as one of their own number. The custom has since 
been observed with the utmost strictness and regularity. 
Sultan Mahmoud I, though very ill, insisted on going to the 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 197 

mosque, with the result that on his return to the palace he 
fell down dead at the entrance as he was dismounting from 
his horse. The same fatality happened to the Sultan Os- 
man II, who, heedless of the advice of his physicians, left his 
sick-bed in order to attend the usual Friday prayers. He 
returned safely to the palace, but expired on the following 
night. 

The ceremony is not now attended with as much eclat as in 
the early days, when the Sultan's servitors were dressed in 
velvet and gold, and scattered handfuls of gold and silver 
along his path as he passed on his way to the mosque of St. 
Sofia. 

In those early days, when Turkish power was literally 
sublime, the far-famed carpets of the East were spread over 
the ground, upon which pranced the Sultan's steed. The 
Oriental escort, w^th its flowing robes, immense turbans, 
military music and ofhcial retinue, has been more or less 
discarded by the fashions of the present day and by the ad- 
vancement of the Turk himself in European customs. 

When the Sultan attends prayers at the mosque the time is 
fixed by the Turkish clock at 7. This means about 2 o'clock 
in the afternoon, European time. He generally comes in a 
large and elegant open carriage. He is accompanied by a 
trusted friend, the aged Namyk Pasha, who is the very pink 
of courtesy, and Osman Pasha, the hero of Plevna. From 
5000 to 7000 troops usually keep the way on these occasions. 
They come in with bands of music from all parts of the city, 
bearing their sacred banners of green, inscribed with Kor- 
anic texts and their own regimental flags. They are in line 



11J8 I^TOA'Y OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 

before the Sultan appears. Some of the battahons or regi- 
ments appear in fanciful uniform, such as the Albanian. 
They had a corps of stalwart sappers and miners, in leathern 
aprons and huge battle-axes. Every part of the dominion is 
represented by the troops. They are a strong body of sol- 
diers, well officered. They have a variety of uniform. Their 
fine music and the esprit du corps of the escort give some- 
thing more than a religious aspect to the occasion. 

Those who would see the "Salemlik'' or the Sultan as he 
enters the mosque and conies from it should take their stand 
about noon either at the guardhouse or at the new quarters. 
*Tn the multitude of the people is the King's honor." The 
population turns out en masse on these occasions. The black- 
tasseled, bright-red fez cap gives its color to the scene. The 
general tone of the uniform, however, is that of the zouave, 
vvhose scarlet trousers reach to the knee. The soldiers are 
olive-colored, and bronzed with many a sun, and are of splen- 
did physique. As the Sultan enters the mosque, he is sur- 
rounded by dozens of his officers, whose uniforms glitter with 
a profusion of gold lace and decorative orders. He is met by 
the Imam, or Moslem priest, at the door. There is no special 
order about the crowd, except that they are kept more or less 
in check by the soldiery. Carriages, horses and people 
mingle together in confusion. ]\Iany of the carriages contain 
the wives of the Sultan, his children, cousins and nieces and 
his mother and aunt. Diamonds shine with unusual profu- 
sion upon the veiled beauties. 

The Sultan enters the mosque. All is quietude without, 
until he has finished his prayers. Then is heard a bugle- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 199 

note; a carpet is laid down, and the officers, who are his adju- 
tants, ministers and others, mount their horses. They are 
ready for the movement. The soldiers "present arms !" the 
iron gate opens, and the shout goes up, 'Tadisha! Chok 
Yasha!" (the Sultan! Let him live forever!). Sometimes the 
Sultan is mounted on a white steed, which is appareled for the 
occasion; but generally, amid salutation, he comes and re- 
turns in his carriage, takes the reins himself, and drives to 
and from the palace. His people close about him, and the 
spectacle is over. 

You may ask how he is dressed. I have generally seen 
him in a blue-black frock coat, closely buttoned, edged with 
red cord. The present Sultan is a graceful rider, and, when 
on horseback, Hke his fellow-countrymen, he shows to ad- 
vantage. His title as Sultan does not signify all the power 
which he possesses as an absolute ruler, but yet it signifies 
much. Padisha signified most. It is the chief and favorite 
title. It signified Father of all the Sovereigns of the Earth. 
He has other titles, such as Imam-ul-Muslemin (Pontifif of 
Mussulmans), Alem Penah (Refuge of the World). Any 
more? Yes. Other titles are that of "Lord of Two Conti- 
nents and Two Seas, King of Kings, High and Mighty Lord, 
Servant of the Two Holy Cities, Shadow of God upon Earth, 
Hunkiar, or Man-Slayer." Any more? Yes; more still. 
He is called Ali-Osman Padishahi (King of the Descendants 
of Osman), Shahin Shahi Alem (King of the Sovereigns of 
the Universe), Hudavendighar (Attached to God), Shabin 
Shahi Movezem ve Hilloulah (High King of Kings and 
Shadow of God; and, to illustrate the theocratic democracy 



200 8T0R7 OF TURRET AND ARMENIA. 

which pervades the civil order and the Mohammedan relig- 
ion, he also bears the title of "The Son of a Slave." He thus 
combines with the highest human exaltation the lowest hu- 
miliation. It is the law of the Koran. He is the son of a 
slave-mother, and, therefore, should he not be humble? He 
is the Divine representative of Mahomet, and the father of 
his people, and, therefore, should he not be exalted? His 
family line runs back with unbroken links to the middle of 
the thirteenth century, and, though he may not be as great in 
war and as rugged in manner as Orchan or Sulieman, or as 
stately and tall as his brother, Abdul Aziz, or perhaps as 
kingly in theatric style as his father, Abdul Medjid, he has a 
splendid eye and a royal mien, becoming the lineage of Os- 
man. His face is pale, and its general contour and features 
indicate a man who is amiable, shrewd, vigilant and able. 

THE OFFICIAL PRAYER OF ISLAM. 

The official prayer of Islam, which is used throughout Tur- 
key, and daily repeated in the Cairo ''Azhar" University by 
10,000 Mohammedan students from all lands, throws a flood 
of light on the subject. The following translation is from 
the Arabic : 

'T seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the rejeem (the ac- 
cursed). In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Mer- 
ciful! O Lord of all Creatures! O Allah! Destroy the 
infidels and polytheists. Thine enemies, the enemies of the 
religion! O Allah! Make their children orphans, and defile 
their abodes, and cause their feet to slip ; and give them, and 
their families, and their households, and their women, and 
their children, and their relatives by marriage, and their 




MOHAMMEDANS AT PRAYER. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 203 

brothers, and their friends, and their possessions, and their 
race, and their weaUh, and their lands, as booty to the Mos- 
lems, O Lord of all Creatures !" 

All who do not accept Mohammed are included among 

"the infidels" referred to in the prayer. 

SUPERSTITION. 

There are few people so superstitious as the people of Tur- 
key All nations have their traditions and fancies ; but in 
Turkey every action, every ceremony, every relation, is 
hedged round with fears and omens and forebodings. What- 
ever happens to you is the work of supernatural agencies, and 
can only be remedied by the nostrums of some disreputable 
hag or some equally suspicious quack diviner. If you lose 
anything, it is the evil eye of some kind friend that has done it. 
If you look fixedly at anybody or anything, it is you who are 
trying to cast the evil eye. 

They make periodical visits to the graves of their dead to 
discover whether the soul is at peace. If the body is not fully 
decomposed at the end of the year, they believe that their re- 
lation has become a Vrykolakas, and use every means to lay 
the spirit. But the Vrykolakas, though the most ghastly of 
spirits, is not alone. There are invisible influences every- 
where in Turkey. If the Vrykolakas haunts the graveyards, 
old Konaks have their edjinlis, fountains their peris, pubHc 
baths their peculiar genii. 

All these imaginary beings, whose existence is implicitly 
believed in, are expected to be encountered by the persons 
upon whom they may choose to cast their baneful or good 



204 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

influence. Their dreaded hostility is combatted by the Chris- 
tians by reHgious faith, such as an earnest appeal to Christ 
and the Virgin, by repeatedly crossing themselves in the 
name of both, or by taking hold of any sacred amulet they 
may have on their persons. These amulets consist of small 
portions of the "true cross," enshrined in crosses of silver, a 
crucifix, or an image of the Virgin, which, trustingly held 
and shown to the apparitions, have the effect of rendering 
them impotent and causing them to vanish. The Turks have 
recourse to the repetition of a certain form of prayer, and to 
their maskas or amulets, in which they place as much faith as 
the Christians do in theirs. 

The spirits that have their abodes in mineral baths are espe- 
cially courted by the sick, who are taken to the establishments 
and left under the beneficent care of these beings. The min- 
eral bath of Kainadjah, near Broussa, is a dark dungeon-like 
place, extremely old, and much famed in the district for its 
healing powers. Its waters, strongly impregnated with sul- 
phur, are boiling hot, rendering the atmosphere of the bath 
intolerable to any but the credulous. 

MAGIC. 

Magic plays a great part in Turkish affairs. Christians 
and Moslems, Greeks and Bulgarians, Turks and Albanians, 
implicitly believe in the power possessed by evil-minded per- 
sons of casting spells upon their enemies or rivals, and ex- 
traordinary means are resorted to with a view to removing 
the baneful influence. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 205 

Most of the Spells cast upon persons are aimed at life, 
beauty, wealth and the affections. They are much dreaded, 
and the events connected with this subject that daily occur 
are often of a fatal character. A Turkish lady, however high 
her position, invariably attributes to the influence of magic 
the neglect she experiences from her husband, or the be- 
stowal of his favor on other wives. Every Hanoum goes 
down to the laundry regularly and rinses with her own hands 
her husband's clothes after the wash, fearing that if any of her 
slaves performed this duty she would have the power of cast- 
mg spells to supplant her in her husband's good graces. 
Worried and tormented by these fears, she is never allowed 
the comfort of enjoying in peace that conjugal happiness 
which mutual confidence alone can give. A buyu boghcha 
(or magic bundle) may at any time be cast upon her, cooling 
her affection for her husband, or turning his love away from 
her. The blow may come from an envious mother-in-law, a 
scheming rival, or from the very slaves of whose services the 
couple stand daily in need. 

The buyu boghcha is composed of a number of incongru- 
ous objects, such as human bones, hair, charcoal, earth, 
besides a portion of the intended victim's garment, etc., tied 
up in a rag. When it is aimed at the life of a person, it is 
supposed to represent his heart, and is studded with forty- 
one needles, intended to act in a direct manner and finally 
cause his death. The advice of magicians, fortune-tellers, 
dream-expounders and quack astrologers is always consulted 
by persons desirous of being enlightened upon any subject. 
Stolen property is believed to be recoverable through their 



200 ST0R7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

instrumentality, and the same faith is placed in them as a vic- 
tim of some wrong would put in the intelligence and experi- 
ence of a clever detective. 

THE EVIL EYE. 

Belief in the evil eye is perhaps more deeply rooted in the 
mind of the Turk than in that of any other nation, though 
Christians, Jews and even some Franks regard it as a real 
misfortune. It is supposed to be cast by some envious or 
maHcious person, and sickness, death and loss of beauty, 
afifection and wealth are ascribed to it. Should you happen 
to fix your gaze on a person or object in the presence of ill- 
disposed Turks, you are liable to receive rude remarks from 
them under the idea that you are casting the evil eye. The 
preservatives employed against the power of this evil are as 
numerous as the means used to dissipate its efifects. The 
principal preventives and antidotes are garlic, cheriot, wild 
thyme, boars' tusks, hares' heads, terebinth, alum, blue glass, 
torquoise, pearls, the bloodstone, carnelian, eggs (principally 
those of the ostrich), a gland extracted from the neck of the 
ass, written amulets, and a thousand other objects. The 
upper classes of the Christians try to avert its efifect by sprink- 
ling the afflicted persons with cold water, fumigating them 
with the burning branches of the palms used on Palm Sun- 
day, and by hanging amulets round their necks ; as preserva- 
tives, coral, blue glass ornaments and crosses are worn. The 
common people of all denominations resort to other means in 
addition to these. On the last day of February they take the 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 207 

heads of forty small fish, and string and hang them up to dry. 
When a child is found ailing from the supposed effects of the 
evil eye, the heads are soaked in water, and the horrible liquid 
given to it to drink. It is considered a good test of the pres- 
ence of the evil eye to place cloves on burning coals and carry 
them routid the room. Should many of these explode, some 
malicious person is supposed to have left the mischievous 
effects of the Nazar behind him. Blue or gray eyes are more 
dreaded than dark ones, and red-haired persons are particu- 
larly suspected. 

DREAMS. 

Dreams play a great part in Eastern life. The young girl, 
early taught to believe in them, hopes to perceive in these 
transient visions a glimpse of the realities that are awaiting 
her; the married woman seeks, in their shadowy illusions, 
the promise of the continuation of the poetry of life, and 
firmly believes in the coming realities they are supposed to 
foreshadow ; while the ambitious man tries to expound them 
in favor of his hopes and prospects, often guiding his actions 
by some indistinct suggestion they convey to his mind. 



208 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 



CHAPTER V. 

CONSTANTINOPLE. 

The city of Constantinople is distinguished for its situa- 
tion, history, trade and political importance. 

Situated on a series of hills which rise from the shores of 
the Marmora, the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, with a 
water frontage of fifteen miles, every hill and conspicuous site 
crowned by stately mosque or by imperial palace, grand pub- 
lic edifice or noble private residence, the approach to the city 
is truly enchanting. Situated on the European side of the 
Bosphorus, the city is divided into tw^o parts by a deep inlet, 
which by reason of its horn-shape and fine harbor is called 
the Golden Horn. On the south side of the Golden Horn, 
of triangular shape, with a circumference of twelve miles. Is 
Constantinople proper, called by the Turks, according to 
their custom of changing proper names, Istambol, or Stam- 
boul. The apex of the triangle is the Seraglio Point, where 
the waters of the Marmora, the Bosphorus and the Golden 
Horn meet ; the two sides of the triangle are the shores of the 
Marmora and of the Golden Horn, and the base is the land 
intervening between the sea and the inner extremity of the 
Horn. On the north side of the Golden Horn, directly op- 
posite Stamboul, is the quarter called Galata, with a water 
frontage of several miles, the seat of the banks and chief com- 
mercial houses, and on the hills above Galata, partly facing 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 211 

toward the Golden Horn and partly toward the Bosphorus, 
is Pera, largely a European city, the site of the foreign em- 
bassies and the great hotels. 

Directly opposite Constantinople, on the Asiatic shore, are 
the cities of Scutari, the ancient ChrysoHs, and Kadikeuy, the 
ancient Chalcedon. The swift and dark-blue Bosphorus, a 
mile wide and twelve miles long, with high banks lined on 
both sides with picturesque villages and beautiful mansions 
and gardens, separates Asia from Europe and conects the 
Black sea and the Marmora. 

During the past sixty years the widening, straightening 
and lighting of the streets; the constructioin of buildings of 
stone and brick instead of wood; the increased supply of 
water, and the organization of a fire department; the for- 
mation of a discipHned and fairly serviceable body of police 
in the place of the janissaries, and the vastly improved means 
of communication, by the multiplication of carriages, by num- 
erous steamboats, by the Roumelian Railroad, by three lines 
of tramway, and by the tunnel between Galata and Pera, have 
greatly helped to make life in the city and suburb secure and 
agreeable. 

To say nothing of the fine anchorage afforded by the shores 
of the Marmora and of the Bosphorus, the harbor of the 
Golden Horn, half a mile wide, five miles long, and deep 
enough for the largest man-of-war, with no tide and pro- 
tected from every wind, offers ample room and perfect se- 
curity for 1 200 ships. 

Situated on the forty-first parallel of north latitude — the 
same as New York — the winters are yet neither so cold ncr 



212 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

the summers so hot as those of the commercial capital of 
America. The very situation of the city affords an easy 
drainage, while the winds and the rains aid greatly to keep the 
air sweet and pure. 

SuppHed with every variety of flesh, fish, vegetable and 
fruit, the market lacks naug'ht which health or the palate de- 
mands. 

From its earliest years Constantinople has been the natural 
centre of the grain trade between the countries bordering on 
the Black Sea and those bordering on the Mediterranean, and 
hither in. modern times have been brought for sale and ex- 
change the manufactured goods of the West and the hand- 
made carpets, the embroideries, perfumes, drugs, silk, wool 
and mohair of the East. Some 25,000 sailing-vessels and 
1500 steamers enter annually the port of Constantinople. 
The foreign commerce as well as almost every work of pubHc 
utility is in the hands of foreigners and native Christians, 
while the Turks are engaged in the civil and military service 
and in certain local trades. 

During the past half-century the Turkish government has 
established not only military and naval schools exclusively 
for Mussulman youth, but also civil, art and medical schools 
for the youth of every nationality. Every community pro- 
vides, at its own expense, for the common-school education 
of its own children. The literary works published in Con- 
stantinople in various languages, many of them being trans- 
lations of European works, are numerous. The different 
communities have many collections of books in their mosques 
and churches, but there are no public libraries in the Euro- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 213 

pean sense. There are also published nineteen daily news- 
papers and thirty-four other periodicals; of the former five 
are Turkish, five Armenian, four French, three Greek, and 
two English. 

Including the inhabitants of the cities and suburbs on both 
sides of the Bosphorus, the population of Constantinople is 
fairly estimated at 1,000,000, of whom 500,000 are Moham- 
medan Turks, Arabs, Persians and Ethiopians; 250,000 are 
Greeks, 150,000 Armenians, 70,000 Jews, 25,000 Europeans 
and 5000 of various other nationaHties. The Turks have never 
made a serious attempt to weld into one body the various 
races, and to this day they remain separate and distinct in 
nationality, language, religion and custom. At the same 
time it is apparent to all that for many years there has been 
going on a gradual but sure diminution of the Turkish popu- 
lation and an increase of the other races, and natural causes 
will, of themselves, in time settle the Eastern question. 

Constantinople proper was the ancient city of Byzantium, 
founded by a colony from Megara, Greece, about 650 B. C. 
Rebuilt and renamed by Constantine the Great (330 A. D.), 
the city was protected by strong walls, which up to 1204 
resisted seventeen attempts to capture it ; it was supplied with 
underground cisterns sufficient to supply with water a million 
men for four months ; it was adorned with many of the mas- 
terpieces of ancient art brought from Egypt, Greece and 
Italy; before its capture by the Latin crusaders, it is said to 
have had 500 churches, of which fifty have been identified in 
recent times, the most of these being in the hands of the 
Turks, five in the hands of the Greeks and one in the hands of 



214 STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 

the Armenians. The most beautiful edifice — used by the 
Turks as a mosque since 1453 — was the renowned church of 
Justinian, built 632-638 A. D., at an estimated cost of $5,000,- 
000, and dedicated to Holy Wisdom (Agia Sophia), un- 
happily called by Europeans Saint Sophia. For 900 
years from the time of Constantine the city was the chief seat 
of European civilization, art, learning, commerce and wealth, 
and for centuries it successfully resisted the advance into 
Europe of the barbarous and multitudinous Asiatic tribes. 
The cruel capture and spoiling of the city in 1204 by the Latin 
crusaders prepared the way for its subsequent capture by the 
Ottoman Turks, in 1453. 

THE HELLESPONT OF TODAY. 

The Strait of the Dardanelles, to which numerous refer- 
ences are now being made in the papers, is, as many know, a 
narrow and tortuous waterway of no great length leading in 
from the north yEgean to the inland Sea of Marmora. But 
what many do not know is that the Turkish fortifications of 
the Dardanelles — at least those of any importance — are situ- 
ated in a single locality in the vicinity of the squatty little 
Turkish town of Chanak-Kalesi (or the "Pottery Castle'') 
which lies on the Asiatic shore a few miles in from the mouth 
of the strait. One of these batteries — a low-lying fortifica- 
tion constructed of mud, or, rather, clay walls, faced here and 
there with stone — is situated at Chanak-Kalesi itself. An- 
other is planted about two miles further northeast on the 
same shore, while immediatelv across the strait from Chanak- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 215 

Kalesi other battlements have been reared on somewhat 
higher ground. None of these defences are especially for- 
midable, as modern fortifications go, although it must be ad- 
mitted that, inferior as they are in many respects, they do 
mount some heavy Krupp guns of modern construction and 
undoubted power, while torpedoes, it is said, have lately been 
sunk in the channel. Every now and then the Turkish gov- 
ernment buys a new gun and sets it up at the Dardanelles with 
a sublime confidence that thereby the integrity of the empire 
will be effectually secured. 

But the Turks understand little about the handling of these 
great guns, although the Osmanli soldiers are brave when 
well officered, and it is probable that in the event of actual 
hostiHties the gunners would soon be driven from these de- 
fences, and many of the guns themselves be dismounted (by 
the skilful fire at long range of a fleet lying just inside the 
lower strait) before the Osmanli garrison could discharge 
more than a few wild shots with their intricate but poorly 
managed ballistic apparatus. What really adds more to the 
strength of these doorway defences of Turkey, so to speak, 
than any qualities of the garrison in these forts, is the swift- 
ness of the currents and the tortuous character of the ship 
channel of the Dardanelles. Yet it is not improbable that 
once crippled by a fire at long range, a nervy and resolute 
captain of a modern battleship could run the gauntlet of the 
upper batteries before the bewildered gunners could adjust 
their artillery to the warship's varying range, or succeed in 
accomplishing more than a smashing of some of the vessel's 
upper works. Out of a fleet of half a dozen vessels endeav- 



216 STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 

oring to force the passage of the Dardanelles, two would 
probably be disabled or would helplessly ground in manoeuv- 
ring, while the balance would steam triumphantly past Galli- 
poli, at the upper end of the Dardanelles, and thereafter have 
absolutely free course directly to the Golden Horn and that 
part of the pretty Bosphorus overlooked by the windows 
and modest facades of the Yildiz palace. 

It is said that in the old days of three-deckers, an Ameri- 
can frigate, whose right of entrance had been challenged by 
the Turks, hove to opposite Chanak (as the Orientals famil- 
iarly and almost affectionately term the palace), fired a salute 
and then, under the cover of the smoke thus raised — for that 
was before the days of ''smokeless powder" — made boldly 
up the strait for the Sea of Marmora before the Turks could 
recover from the astonishment or interpose any forcible 
remonstrance. Another American naval ofificer tells an 
amusing story of an experience that befell him when his 
ship was anchored off Chanak awaiting the reception of 
''pratique.'' After some delay, a boat was observ^ed putting 
off from shore in the direction of the United States corvette. 
As the boat came alongside, a dirty Turkish officer stood up 
in the stern-sheets, and pointing with his thumb in the general 
direction of Constantinople, exclaimed : "Stamboulagit !'' The 
officer of the deck did not understand the whole force of the 
expression (Go to Constantinople!), but with the quick wit 
of a Yankee he instinctively divined the significance of the 
"git" (an imperative from the Turkish verb gitmek), which 
seemed to possess a certain resemblance to Yankee slang, 
and immediately gave orders to get the anchor aboard and 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 219 

bear away up the strait toward Stamboul as fast as the slow 
American tub could travel. Outgoing (that is, westward- 
bound) vessels stop their engines abreast of a Turkish guard 
ship no bigger than a North river tug, anchored about two 
miles above Chanak-Kalesi, and there the permission in doc- 
umentary form which they had received authorizing the nav- 
igation of the Turkish waters by them they deliver up before 
steaming past Chanak out among the Greek islands of the 
^gean. If a venturesome or ignorant merchant steamer on 
entering the strait presumes to pass on beyond a certain point, 
a shot is fired across her bow, and the cost of the powder thus 
burned is collected scrupulously from the owners or agents 
of the vessel on her arrival at Stamboul, as Oriental logic 
fails to comprehend why poor Turkey should pay for any 
foreign disregard of her rules! 

The Dardanelles practically constitute the front door of 
the Turkish empire (at least as regards its westward expos- 
ure), whereat many would-be visitors are now ringing the 
bell. But the Turk is not at home to all callers, and just now 
is especially shy of such observers as foreign men-of-war 
that may be hanging around Besica Bay — a piece of water 
just off the famous plain of Troy, where Dr. Schliemann 
made his much-discussed discoveries, which is readily 
reached by a fe^^7 hours' ride from Chanak-Kalesi along the 
southern shore of the Dardanelles and thence up and over a 
fine range of hills that affords a magnificent view of Samo- 
thrace, Imbros and other historic islets of the blue Mgtan. 



220 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA, 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ARMENIANS— WHO ARE THEY? 

Their Religion, Occupation, Habits of Life, Intelligence, Strength 
and Weakness. 

By James D. Barton, D. D., Secretary of the American Board. 

According to Armenian histories, the first chief of the Ar- 
menians was Haik, the son of Togarmah, the son of Gomar, 
the son of Jahpeth, the son of Noah. It is an interesting fact 
that the Armenians to this day call themselves Haik, their 
language "Haiaren," and their country "Haiasdan." '*Ar- 
menia" and ''Armenian" are words which cannot be spelled 
with Armenian characters or easily pronounced by that 
people. That name was given them and their country by 
outside nations because of the prowess of one of their kings, 
Aram, the seventh from Haik. 

Probably this people is composed of the resultant of strong 
Aryan tribes overrunning and conquering the country now 
occupied by the Armenians, and which was then possessed 
by primitive Turanian populations. Subject to the vicissi- 
tudes of conquest and invasion, the borders of Armenia have 
fluctuated. Lake Van has always been within the kingdom, 
and the capital has usually remained during their highest 
prosperity at the city of Van. They have had a long line of 
kings of valor and renown. They were an independent na- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 221 

tion, but with varying degrees of power, until A. D, 1375, 
when they became completely a subject people. Since that 
time their country has been under the governments of Rus- 
sia, Persia and Turkey, far the larger portion being in Tur- 
key. During the years of their greatest prosperity, from 
600 B. C. to about 400 A. D., this nation played a prominent 
part in the wars of the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Greeks 
and Romans. 

There are perhaps, from 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 Armenians 
in Turkey, Russia and Persia. In the absence of accurate 
records we must be content with a mere estimate, based upon 
observations and inadequate government returns. In no 
extended district do they comprise a majority of the inhab- 
itants. They are everywhere mingled with and surrounded 
by Kurds and Turks. The Armenians are forbidden to 
carry or possess arms under severe penalties, while the other 
races are armed, many of them, by the government. 

Armenian histories relate that, soon after the resurrection 
of Christ, Abgar, the King of Armenia, with his court, ac- 
cepted Christianity. This was short-lived, however; but in 
the third century A. D., under the leadership of Gregory the 
Illuminator, the Armenian people, as a nation, became Chris- 
tian. This was the first nation to adopt Christianity as a 
national rehgion. The Church was called ''Gregorian'' by 
those outside, but "Loosavochagan" by the Armenians, the 
word meaning "Illuminator," the name given to Gregory. 
The Gregorians and Greeks worked in harmony in the great 
councils of the Church until 451. At the fourth Ecumenical 
Council, which met at Chalcedon that year, the Gregorian 



222 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Church separated from the Greek upon the so-called Mono- 
physite doctrine, the former accepting and the latter reject- 
ing it. Since then the Gregorian Church has been distinctly 
and exclusively an Armenian national Church. 

The organization and control of the Church is essentially 
Episcopal. The spiritual head is a CathoHcos; but in addi- 
tion to him there is a Patriarch, whose office bears largely 
upon the political side of the national life as related to the 
Ottoman government. There are three of the former resid- 
ing in the order of their importance at Echmiadzin, in Rus- 
sia, Aghtamar, on an island in Lake Van, and at Sis in 
Cihcia, each with his own diocese. There are two of the 
latter residing at Constantinople and Jerusalem. There are . 
nine grades of Armenian clergy. 

The Bible was translated into their language in the middle 
of the fifth century. Owing to a change in the spoken 
tongue the Bible became a dead book to the people, although 
it was constantly read at their church services. As the 
priests scarcely ever understood the scripture which they 
read, Christian doctrines were kept alive by oral teachings; 
but the restraint upon life which pure Christianity exercises 
was largely removed. They blindly accepted the Bible as 
the Word of God. They have many large, fine churches, 
some of which are several hundred years old. 

This nation has suffered great persecutions for its faith 
during the last eleven centuries, but with wonderful patience 
and endurance has clung to the old beliefs and forms of wor- 
ship. Mission work was begun among them for the pur- 
pose of introducing into the Church the Bible in the spoken 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 223 

language of the people, in order that its teachings might 
reform the Church and the nation. 

The Armenian nature is essentially religious. Born into 
the Church, its customs, traditions and teachings have large 
influence over the life. Although much of their teachings 
and many of their customs are based upon mere traditions 
and are not in accord with the enlightened, educated Chris- 
tianity of the West, nevertheless the fact that during the last 
few months thousands among them have deliberately chosen 
death, with terrible torture, to life and Islam, shows that 
among them there exists much essential Christian faith. It 
must not be overlooked that the old Church has been greatly 
enlightened and elevated by the mission schools and col- 
leges planted in their country and the evangelistic work car- 
ried on among them. They, too, in imitation of the evan- 
gelical branch of their nation, have organized schools, ac- 
cepted the Bible in the spoken language, and introduced into 
their church worship many of the methods of Christian in- 
struction used by the Christian Church all over the world. 

The Armenians' greatest enemy outside of Islam is their 
incompatibility of character. They cannot agree among 
themselves. "Haik voch miapan" (''Armenians cannot 
agree") is one of their many proverbs. This is their national 
weakness. Owing to this fact, which led to internal jeal- 
ousies and bickerings and strife, during the period of their 
most successful national life, they were weakened, then dis- 
rupted and finally completely subjugated. This character- 
istic has constantly appeared in the management of their 
ecclesiastical affairs; and the Turks, in order to control 



224 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

them, have made great lise of this weakness, playing one 
party off against another. The source of this national weak- 
ness lies in their jealousy of imagined or actual rivals. Sus- 
picious of each other and jealous of competition, the race 
has been broken up into factions which has rendered im- 
possible anything like a national growth or unity, and has 
made it easy for the ruling Turk to keep them in complete 
subjection. Many times the Armenians themselves have 
been the most effective instrument in the hands of their di- 
plomatic rulers in checking national progress. 

Owing to this fact, if for no other reason, a plan for a gen- 
eral revolution upon the part of the Armenians could lead 
only to exposure and failure. The most intelligent have 
from the first fully understood this, and have deprecated any 
agitation which must necessarily end in disaster. The ad- 
vocates of revolution have almost invariably been men of 
narrow views and no leadership in the nation at large, who 
have, outside of Turkey, organized rival societies to collect 
money from credulous Armenians to the credit of their own 
personal bank account and for the injury of their protesting 
people in Turkey. This same characteristic would make it 
impossible today for the Armenians to be self-governing. 

The Armenians are the most inteUigent of all the peoples 
of Eastern Turkey. In Western Turkey their only rivals 
are the Greeks. They far outclass their Mohammedan 
rulers in the desire for general and liberal education and in 
their ability to attain to genuine scholarship. During the 
last twenty years few institutions of -higher education in the 
United States and in England have failed to have Armenians 




ARMENIAN W0ME;N IN WORKING COSTUME- 



f^TORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 227 

among their pupils, and the rank which they have usually 
taken is most creditable to the race. 

The popularity of Euphrates College, in Harpoot, and of 
Central Turkey College, at Aintab, whose students are al- 
most exclusively Armenians, as well as Anatolia College, 
at Alarsovan, and Robert College, at Constantinople, which 
have many Armenians among their students, taken together 
with the fact that large sums are paid each year by the people 
for the education of their sons and daughters, all proves that 
in addition to the ability to advance mentally there is a strong 
desire upon the part of the Armenians for general enlighten- 
ment. Bihngual from childhood, and many of them trilin- 
gual, they learn languages easily. Their general tendency 
is to prefer metaphysical studies, being inclined rather to 
the speculative in their manner of thought. They have 
taken readily to the idea of female education, and the three 
colleges for girls in Turkey are among the most popular 
evangelical institutions. These are largely patronized by 
the Armenians. This nation has produced many wxU-known 
scholars, which fact, taken together with the general high 
standard of scholarship among her students, and the eager 
desire prevalent among the people for a liberal education, 
shows that the race intellectually compares favorably with 
the most favored nations of the world. 

The Armenians are the farmers, artisans, tradesmen and 
bankers of Eastern Turkey. They have strong commercial 
instincts and mature ability, and, being industrious withal, 
have made much progress in all these lines. In spite of the 
heavy restrictions placed upon them by the Turkish govern- 



228 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

ment, in the form of general regulations and excessive taxes, 
in some parts of Turkey the leading business operations are 
largely in their hands. In some sections of the vilayets of 
Harpoot and Diarbekir, twenty-five years ago, the land was 
owned almost entirely by Moslems, but rented and farmed 
by the Armenians. At that time the Armenians were not 
permitted to possess, to any extent, the soil. Lack of indus- 
try upon the part of the Mohammedans and the acquirement 
of property upon the part of the Armenians, largely by emi- 
gration to the United States, have led the Turks to sell their 
ancient estates to Armenians, who are supplied with funds 
from their friends who are working in this country. The 
careful management of the property thus acquired led to the 
advancement of the proprietor farmer, while the one from 
whom the land was purchased was left without an income. 

While the Turks in many of the principal cities where Ar- 
menians dwell own most of the shops, the renters are largely 
Armenians. An intelligent Turkish governor once told the 
writer that if the Armenians should suddenly emigrate or be 
expelled from Eastern Turkey, the Moslem would neces- 
sarily follow soon, as there was not enough commercial en- 
terprise and ability coupled with industry in the Turkish 
population to meet the absolute needs of the people. 

The Armenian, while industrious and naturally inclined to 
follow in the footsteps of his father, takes very readily to a 
new trade. When emigrating to foreign countries, he easily 
adapts himself to his new surroundings and does creditable 
service in almost any line of work. This adaptability, to- 



8T0RT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 229 

gether with a tendency to hold on to a line once begun, has 
given a stable character to the nation. 

The Armenian is domestic in his habits and aspirations, 
and not military. In the early history of the race we do not 
find much written of their conquests. They did not go out- 
side of their borders, as a general thing, to conquer their 
neighbors. While not lacking in physical courage and 
prowess in war, when called to defend their country against 
invasion, they did not seek to conquer. Sometimes in driv- 
ing back an aggressive foe they carried the war into his ter- 
ritory and levied upon it for injuries received; yet it never 
seems to have been their ambition to be a great nation ruling 
over conquered races. Their chief ambition appears to have 
been to possess in quiet their beloved fatherland, "hairenik," 
where they might worship God according to the demands of 
their own national Church. Today they have no desire of 
conquest or ambition to rule. Their greatest wish is to be 
permitted to enjoy without fear the blessing of their simple 
domestic life, together with the privileges of worship and 
education and the opportunity to possess in peace the fruits 
of their frugal industry. The Armenian loves his children 
and is most closely attached to his home. When he emi- 
grates it is only for the purpose of trade and gain. His 
heart's affection centres in the old rude home to which he, if 
unprevented, will return to rejoin his loved ones. In all his 
native land the city or village of his birth is the dearest spot 
on earth. 

The Armenians are most simple and frugal in their man- 
ner of life. Uncomplaining and generally cheerful, they 



230 STOBY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 

continue their occupations, following in the footsteps of 
their fathers without desire for change. The son of the car- 
penter is a carpenter content with the adz and saw, and the 
shoemaker sticks to his last without a thought of being any- 
thing else so long as that trade serves him. The home life 
is patriarchal, the father ruling the household, and the sons 
bringing their waves to the paternal roof. In the event of 
the death of the father, the oldest son takes his place at the 
head of the family. The aged are held in high esteem, and 
their counsel sought and honored. The women occupy in- 
ferior positions, the nation copying many customs in regard 
to them from the Turks among whom they live. They are 
not an immoral race, but are inclined to drink wine, which 
is a cheap product of their country. 

Thus we have a race old in national history when Alexan- 
der invaded the East; and with its star of empire turning 
toward decline w^hen the Caesars were at the height of their 
power; a nation not mingling in marriage with men and 
women of another faith and blood now as pure in its descent 
from the undiscovered ancestors of nearly three decades of 
centuries ago as the Hebrews stand unmixed with Gentile 
blood; with a language, a literature, a national Church, dis- 
tinctively its own, and yet a nation without a country, with- 
out a government, without a protector or a friend in all 
God's world. This is not because it has sinned, but because 
it has been terribly sinned against; not because of its intel- 
lectual or moral or physical weakness, but because it has 
little to offer in return for the service, which the common 
botherhood of man among nations should prompt the Chris- 
tian nations of the world to render. 



STOBY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 231 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 

By Herant Mesrob Kiretclijiau, General Secretary the Armenian 
Relief Association. 

From the earliest day when the human family began to 
dwell in groups of clans and nations upon the face of the 
earth, there dwelt upon the highlands of Mount Ararat in 
Asia a people in partriarchal simplicity and vigor. The fer- 
tile earth, watered by the rivers of Paradise, nourished them, 
and honest toil, that held commerce with nature and coped 
with the elements, developed in them human virtues which 
have been treasured through the storms of ages in the im- 
pregnable fortress of a pure and normal family life. In the 
annals of history they are known as the Armenian nation, 
and their country, the ancient Ararat, as the Land of Ar- 
menia. 

The ceaseless floods of war and devastation that make up 
the history of the ancient world, all passed over Armenia or 
drew her into the torrents of fire and blood. But the awful 
conflicts with great barbaric nations again and again laid the 
nation low and brought her into subjection, only to see her 
rise once more with undaunted courage in defense of home 
and country. 

You will at once seek an explanation of this power of en- 
durance of ancient Armenia when you remember all that his- 



232 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

tory has to tell us concerning those great military nations 
who were the neighbors of Armenia from the very outset- 
Assyria, Babylon, the mighty Persian Empire, and, later, 
Rome, that held in her sway continents and empires and 
massed them against one another for cruel destruction; 
when you remember that the wars that these nations waged 
were wars of extermination and of such efficiency that they 
themselves, ultimately, disappeared from the face of the 
earth. Armenia stood upon her highland home of Ararat 
and faced these barbaric hordes, one after the other, and at 
times more than one together; now conquering them and 
now falling under their assaults; now using their language 
and literature and then again having kings and princes in 
numbers who came under her sway and under the influence 
of her language and literature; and yet today, after the map 
of Asia has been cast and recast again and again with mighty 
upheavals that sealed the doom of nations, Armenia stands 
in the nineteenth century, still upon the soil of ancient Ararat 
and presents the same national characteristics that distin- 
guished her as a nation in the beginning of days. That which 
was most interesting, and at the same time most touching to 
me, at the British Museum, was a long bronze tablet, dark 
with the rust of centuries, but showing clearly an Assyrian 
king sitting upon his throne, and Armenian kings and princes 
bringing him tribute. 

If anything is needed at this time to move the hearts of 
men toward Armenia, over and above the fact that they are 
human beings subjected to the greatest injustice and tyranny 
ever known, it will be found in thivS fact, that the Armenian 




,1-MN, L' ) \-,i A N riNOPi<:e. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 235 

nation has stood up for an idea and a principle, and has 
proven certain national, social and spiritual facts which she 
can present to the Western world today as her share of the 
priceless inheritance of human experience that is to be left 
for the coming generations of men. 

And this is the story of the nation : 

Haig was the leader of that highland clan which founded 
the Armenian nation. The historian describes him as hand- 
some and noble in stature, with magnificent curls and strong 
brawny arms. Those were days of mighty men upon earth. 
They went about proudly, holding captive whole families of 
men over the earth. The mad lust of conquest was then 
born, and drove these men of the plains so that the ''sword 
of each man was thrust into the side of his neighbor in the at- 
tempt of ruling over one another." Among these strong men 
was one Belus (or Pel in Armenian), who carried his depre- 
dations as far as the land of Ararat, where the hero Haig had 
taken refuge with his whole clan, numbering about 300. 
There were valiant men also among the lovers of home and 
peace, of whom was Haig. He believed in God and refused 
to submit to Pel or to worship him as others did ; and on the 
plains beneath mighty Ararat this little band of highlanders, 
led by the fearless Haig, with the motto "Let us die or con- 
quer," plunged into the heart of the vast horde of thousands 
of wild warriors led by Pel. Haig himself slew Pel in the 
fight, and the first battle for independence on record was 
fought successfully on the side of right against might; and 
from that day the Armenian kingdom was established and 
grew apace. This is but a sketch of the interesting story 



230 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

as Moses of Khoren, the father of Armenian history, in the 
fifth century, gives us. Even if regarded as a legend, it cer- 
tainly was a story of the beginning of a nation, full of inspira- 
tion to make the succeeding generations stand up for home 
and Hberty. 

It was the great King Aram, the sixth after Haig, who 
first won fame by conquests far and wide among the sur- 
rounding nations, and we have thus been called "Arme- 
nians," while in the Armenian language we are called Haik, 
or Hayer, after the name of Haig. Thenceforward, the 
story of our people is like that of other Oriental nations : they 
conquered and were conquered; they built cities and estab- 
lished dominion over the land. Then came wars and disas- 
ters, and ruins were left for monuments of past glory. The 
Armenian kingdom, with a population of some 50,000,000, 
once extended far into Asia Minor, and almost to the ^gean, 
and from the Black Sea down to the coast of the Mediterra- 
nean. Four dynasties of kings ruled the land, besides 
princes and governors innumerable, until the sceptre de- 
parted from the nation in the year 1375. and the last king, 
Levon VI, being taken captive by the Arabs, was ultimately 
released, and took refuge in France, where he died in 1393, 
and was buried in the Chapel of St. Denis. There Arm.c- 
nians gathered in 1893 to commemorate the 500th anniver- 
sary of his death, and once more to revive the hope of the 
nation that the tomb of Levon VI was a token that the sal- 
vation of our people was to come from the West. 

But, magnificent as are the ruins of ancient Armenia, and 
interesting as are her national life and traditions, her poetry 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 237 

and her architecture and the achievements of her kings 
among those of other Oriental rulers, they all fail in import- 
ance before this one supreme fact of the preservation of the 
Armenian home upon the highlands of Ararat, generation 
after generation, until the coming of Christ, when it found 
a sure refuge in the Christian Church. It is true that the sal- 
vation of the Armenian nation, out of the disasters of the As- 
syrian, Babylonian, Parthian, Persian and Roman invasions, 
was wonderful and unique ; and yet for those who have had 
even a ghmpse of the Hfe of these nations, no words are nec- 
essary to emphasize the fact that the salvation of the Arme- 
nian family out of the unutterable corruption of the Hfe of 
these Oriental nations, with whom they were in contact for 
centuries, and were even in subjection under the heavy yoke 
of their tyranny, was a far greater miracle, and so far as hu- 
man knowledge can go, must ever stand as a testimony that 
the promises of God are sure, and that for those that love 
Him and keep His commandments, the blessing goes down 
to a thousand generations; that from the simple faith and 
pure life of the father and hero, Haig, there went out a mo- 
mentum of spiritual potency that carried the nation safely 
through those floods of Oriental corruption whose power for 
destruction the Western mind can hardly conceive. And it 
may be stated here that, horrible as the butchery of Moham- 
medan massacres have been, the corrupting influence of the 
foul sensuality that has pressed upon the Christians in Tur- 
key for five hundred years is the far greater evil, and that it is 
a curse to know the Turkish language, as we all come to 
know in the cities of Turkey, and go about and daily hear the 



238 m'ORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

talk of all classes of the Turkish population, since the human 
mind and heart receive and carry lasting impressions. 

Through all those thousands of years the Armenian nation 
clung to the integrity and purity of the family, even in the 
days of idolatry, and, as a consequence, the intelligence and 
the vitality of the nation were kept and developed as the cen- 
turies rolled by. There was the Prince Ara, the son of the 
great Aram. Of such noble mien and form he was that he is 
known in our history as "Ara the Beautiful." Of him Moses 
of Khoren tells us that, when urged by the licentious Queen 
Semiramis of Babylon to become her husband, he chose 
to go into war and lose his life in unequal combat with the 
might of Babylon rather than desecrate the sanctity of the 
Armenian family; for, although the queen had given orders 
to her generals that they should capture Ara the Beautiful 
alive, he went into the thick of the fight and was slain. And 
in his memory, perhaps with a pang of tardy repentance, this 
heathen queen, Semiramis, built the city of Van and its im- 
pregnable citadel, rising there by our beautiful Armenian 
lake, as an everlasting testimony that even in the days of 
idolatry, according to the traditions of Armenia, the chastity 
of man and woman was to be held at par, even by her princes. 

No wonder Christianity found a ready acceptance in Ar- 
menia when at its very dawn the light of the Christ shone 
upon our land through the preaching of the apostles Thad- 
deus and Bartholomew. It brought with the gift of spiritual 
life a greater appreciation of true freedom and a deeper affec- 
tion for the home of the nation. 

The nation was prepared to accept Christianity as the na- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 239 

tional religion when the right man came to uphold the ban- 
ner of the Cross — the man who always comes at the right 
time, who is the hope of your people and my people, under 
God; comes as Haig or Vartan, as Washington or Lincoln, 
but always with power and the might of faith and wisdom. 
So came Gregory, ''the Illuminator," to Armenia. A prince 
of the ruling dynasty, he gave up the splendors of his posi- 
tion and became an humble preacher of the Gospel among 
his people. Cruel was the persecution that faced them, but, 
as martyrs of all ages, they met it undaunted. Prominent 
among those martyrs were thirty-six maidens, whose names 
are mentioned to this day in the services of the Church to- 
gether with those of "our first Illuminators, Thaddeus and 
Bartholomew, and our Father Gregory, the Illuminator of 
the Land of Armenia." King Durtad, who led these perse- 
cutions, was smitten with disease. Released from the 
loathsome dungeon where he was thrown, St. Gregory 
healed the king, and thereupon both the court, and, by edict 
of the king, the entire nation, became Christian in the year 
302, ten years before Constantine saw the illumined Cross; 
and thus the Armenian people became the firsts in the world 
to accept Christianity as a nation. The leaders of the infant 
Church at once undertook missionary labors among the sur- 
rounding Caucasian races, and had great influence, even 
among the Persians, of whom many became Christian. 

I can only say a word about the immediate results of 
Christianity upon the nation. For one thing, it certainly 
presents a problem as to the power of this simple story of 
Bethlehem which the worldly philosopher of the nineteenth 



240 STORY OF TURKEY A\D ARMENIA. 

century will find it hard to explain. The land of war and 
conquest, of princes and generals, of peasants and artisans, 
suddenly became the land of Christian heroes, philosophers 
and valiant scholars. There arose a handful of men known 
as the Younger and the Elder Disciples. They went to Con- 
stantinople, Alexandria and Athens, and mastered the Greek 
language, in those days when there were none of the modern 
accessories of civilization, no universities, libraries or ency- 
clopaedias. They won fame in those cities as men of learning 
and power. They came back to Armenia and gave the Bible 
to the people in a translation of remarkable accuracy and 
beauty of diction, of which Prof. Brown, of the University of 
Edinburgh, told me that in the late revision of the Anglo- 
Saxon Bible, it was referred to and was regarded as a "queen 
translation." The nation found a fortress in that Bible. The 
nation's love of freedom, her inheritance of simple common 
sense and the devotion to an active, practical, natural life 
may have all concentrated themselves in producing that most 
important result in the life of the Church established in Ar- 
menia by Gregory the Illuminator, namely, that the Arme- 
nian Church laid hold of the cardinal truths of the Christian 
faith in the simple revelation of the Father, the Son and the 
Holy Ghost, and not only failed to understand anything 
more than that in that religion, but deliberately refused to 
enter into any theological discussion whatever. 

The Armenian Church was represented at the Nicean 
Council by Arisdakes, the younger son of Gregory the Illu- 
minator. When he came back and brought the creed, St. 
Gregory read it, and tlicn lie wrote under it: 'T.ut we, let us 




AN ARMENIAN HIGH PRIEST. 



STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 243 

glorify Him who was from before the eternities, worshiping 
the Holy Trinity and one God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, 
now, ever and forever/' That holy man seemed to see then 
with the wisdom that comes from above that the Byzantine 
mind had already begun its disastrous course of endless word- 
spinning. He seemed to say to them: "If you are going to 
talk of things incomprehensible to the human mind; if you 
are going to discourse of the eternal God, then I will tell you 
what we will do : We will worship Him who was from 
before the eternities." And so the Church has always re- 
peated that affirmation with the creed for sixteen centuries, 
and it has been as a seal, forever shutting out all discussion 
of theological points, and has led the nation to find the ex- 
pression of her faith in living intensely, in holiness and right- 
eousness, and in worship with child-like devotion. It was 
for this cause principally, together with the political enmity 
of the Greek nation, that the Armenian Church took no part 
in the succeeding Church councils in the East. 

Thus we have the phenomenon of a Christian Church liv- 
ing and holding the faith through sixteen centuries against 
fearful odds, and yet not having one single schism or heresy, 
nor one theological controversy of which there is any men- 
tion in all her history or in the magnificent Christian litera- 
ture that was developed in the Golden Age of Armenian 
Christianity in the early centuries. 

The liturgy of the Church w^as taken from that of St. 
James, of the Church of Jerusalem, and the form of church 
government has been one steady unchanging line of the epis- 
copacy. But in that again we have this remarkable feature 



244 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

that in Armenia, of all lands the one where tyranny and high- 
handed hierarchical domineering should have developed be- 
cause of the eternal example set to her people by her tyrant 
masters, the Armenian Church has had not a vestige of caste 
in her Church government or a tinge of the blight that has 
come upon the Church of the West in the form of ecclesiasti- 
cal tyranny. Upon the same patriarchal throne of Etchmi- 
adzin, near Erivan, in Russian Armenia, where in the year 
302 sat Gregory the Illuminator, there sits today a man who 
rose from the ranks of the common peasantry of Armenia 
and became priest, bishop, patriarch, and now Catholicos, or 
chief Bishop of the Church ; and yet, the venerable Catholi- 
cos Mugurditch Khrimian is called the "Beloved Father" of 
the nation, and is in reality nothing but a father and servant 
of his people and a brother in very deed to the clergy of the 
humblest rank. From the First Encyclical Letter of Bless- 
ing, which he sent out after his ordination, on December 15, 
1893, I quote a few passages, to give you a glimpse of the 
spirit of the man that so worthily represents the spirit of the 
Church of Armenia : 

"Mugurditch, Servant of Jesus Christ, and by the inscrut- 
able will of God, Chief Bishop and Catholicos of all the Ar- 
menians: Supreme Patriarch of the national pre-eminent 
Throne of the Apostolic Mother Church of Ararat, in Holy 
Catholic Etchmiadzin : 

"Salutations to thee, Apostolic Church of Armenia, born 
in Christ by the Gospel of Thaddeus and Bartholomew and 
Gregory, nurtured and developed in godly faith ; 

"Salutations to thee, Mother Mount Sion of God — Jerusa- 
lem ; in thee appeared the Light of the World, the Incarnate 
Saviour, the Only-Begotten, who came down from the 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 245 

Father, He who laid the foundations of the Church of Ara- 
rat, of Holy Etchmiadzin, built in Light ; 

"Salutations to you, Catholicoses and Patriarchs, who are 
brothers with me in equal yoke to conduct and to bear the 
services of the Church of Christ : Know ye how great is our 
responsibility in the presence of the great Chief Shepherd? 
For every one of us is to give an account for his fold ; 

"Salutations to you. Preachers of the Church, ye who 
teach and deliver the message of the Gospel! Comfort ye, 
comfort ye, my people, for great is their grief, and their sins 
are forgiven them, saith God; 

"Salutations to you, Priests of the Most High God, who 
dispense the Holy Sacraments of the Church and are educa- 
tors and guardians of the Holy Family. Know ye how 
great is your office?" 

And after telling of his years, now past seventy, and how 

he is appalled at the sight of his flock scattered over the face 

of the earth, he calls upon the Armenian clergy to be eyes 

and hands to him, and to redouble their energy, and then 

adds: 

"But what is the help of man? O, that the compassionate 
Samaritan might pass by you ! 

"Pray for me, my spiritual co-workers, for I know that 
most heavy is the cross that the Church of Armenia has laid 
upon my shoulders. 

"And thou, Church and people of Armenia, who have 
chosen me to be your shepherd, I depend as a refuge upon 
your prayers, and I believe that the Lord will hear your sup- 
plications and keep me for the beloved Church. I shall live 
for you and you for Christ. Amen. 

"Written this first Encyclical of Blessing on the fifteenth 
of December, 1893, and in the year of the nation 4383, on the 
Mother Throne of the Armenians, in Holy Etchmiadzin." 

It cost Armenia torrents of blood and the lives of thousands 

upon thousands of her children, generation after generation, to 

keep the Armenian Church and thereby the nation itself alive, 



246 STORY OF TURKFjY AND ARMENIA. 

as a civilized people among the barbarous hordes which over- 
ran Armenia and laid it waste again and again. The Christ, in- 
deed, brought a sword into Armenia from the day that her 
thirty-six maidens were slain as the first martyrs to the hour 
of the last awful massacre in the streets of Constantinople. 
Countless volumes could be filled with the story of Arme- 
nia's wars and battles in defence of the Christian Church; 
but the battle of the Armenian nation against Persia, in the 
fifth century, may well stand as an example of those holy 
wars. Armenia was then under Persia, and, as in all other 
ages, then, also, her people had found favor in the sight of 
her conquerors, and in the Persian army there was the valiant 
Armenian general, Vartan, with numbers of other high officers 
and 66,000 gallant warriors. The Persians worshiped fire. 
People call this or that faith a religion, and think that the 
name sanctifies faith, whereas the question is not how strong 
your faith is, but what you believe in. The fire worship of 
Persia carried with it awful corruption in morals, which went 
as a part of that religion. It was that which made the priests 
of Armenia call it darkness, and the faith of the Christ the 
Light of Heaven. The wicked king, Hazgerd, instigated 
by the more wicked priests of the fire-god, took it into his 
head to convert all races of men in his great empire to the 
"one true faith" of Zoroastrianism ; and so the order went 
out, as it did in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. Then the Ar- 
menian priests and generals sat in council and indited an 
answer, giving the reasons of their faith and why they were 
compelled to refuse to comply with the order of the Shahin- 
shah who had never known a refusal. They told of the 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 247 

Christ who Himself was King of Kings and yet had been cru- 
cified, dead and buried, and how he rose the third day from 
the dead and ascended into heaven, there to be King of 
Kings and Lord of Lords forever. And this with many 
words that should have convinced anyone but that blind 
servant of the Evil Spirit. Well did they know what it 
meant to send up such an answer to the court of Persia, and 
they told the king that nothing could shake them from their 
faith, neither angels nor men, neither sword nor fire, nor 
water, nor all bitter stripes. ''Of thee tortures, of us sub- 
mission; thine is the sword, ours are the necks. We are not 
better than those that went before us who laid down upon 
this testimony their goods and their bodies. =5^ * >k ^g]^ 
us no more, for the covenant of our faith is not with men 
that we should be deceived as children, but in bonds indisso- 
luble with God, from whom there is no separation or de- 
parture, neither now, nor ever, nor forever, nor forever and 
ever." And out from the army of Persia came Vartan Ma- 
migonian and his 66,000 braves, and there they stood in camp 
under the midnight skies; and with them were the priests 
and women of Armenia. And they set the altars and par- 
took of the Holy Communion, and until the morning light 
told the story of men from the days of Joshua and Gideon 
until those of the martyrs of Armenia who had gone out to 
fight the battles in the .lame of Christ the King. There 
stood Vartan, the general-in-chief, and delivered an address 
to his soldiers which shall live much longer than the historic 
words of the great warrior of France. All this story, and of 
what followed in the battle of the following day, we have in a 



248 f^TORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

remarkable little book written by the priest Yeghishe, who 
was one of the Younger Disciples and an eye-witness of the 
battle. In the spring-time where the flowers covered the 
fields on the plains of Avarayr, by the river Dughmood, was 
fought a mighty battle by the 66,000 soldiers of Christ against 
the countless hosts of Persia, each 3000 men of whom, formed 
in the shape of a wedge, were led by an elephant. "It was 
not," says Yeghishe, "that one side or the other conquered, 
for brave men met brave men." Ten hundred and thirty-six 
Armenians fell together with Vartan Mamigonian to leave 
their names forever in the roll of the martyrs of Armenia. 
Thirty-five hundred and forty-four Persians fell, nine of 
whom w^ere among the highest officials of the Persian army 
and personally favored by the Shah Hazgerd, so that they 
were afraid to tell the news of the battle in the court of Per- 
sia. But Armenia was conquered and devastated, her 
priests taken captive, tortured and murdered, and untold 
misery brought upon her people for years and years. Yet 
the battle of Vartan Mamigonian and his Christian warriors 
on the field of Avarayr became the Bunker Hill of Christi- 
anity in the East; for from that day to this, while the whole 
history of Armenia has been one of constant martyrdom, 
though unseen and unheard by the world, no potentate or 
conquel-or has ventured to attempt to take Christianity away 
from the Armenians as a nation, surely knowing that the 
only alternative which the nation would accept would be ex- 
termination. 

And now Persia was gone, and Rome fell under the weight 
of her own national crimes; the Spartan and the Athenian 




AN ARMENIAN WOMAN. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 251 

philosopher found their resting-place in history, but the 
homes of Armenia, rising out of the overwhelming ruins of 
these empires — our beloved Church of Armenia swimming 
through pools of blood, creeping from under the crumbHng 
battlements of ruined empires, stood once more upon the 
sacred soil of Mother Armenia; still the same home, where 
gentleness and purity made the atmosphere, and where pa- 
tience and obedience were the law. The priest still held up 
the cross, broken and covered with the blood of martyrs, and 
the Church opened her gates that her people might still 
come in, and in spite of the disasters of the ages, still praise 
the God of Jacob, in whom they had learned to trust. But 
the cup was not full, and the greatest trial of the Church, and 
direst of all calamities for the nation, was yet to come at the 
hands of a countless host of stern and cruel warriors that 
moved onward to conquer and to destroy in the name of God 
and Mahomet. 

THE MOHAMMEDAN DOMINATION. 

When the Crusaders came from the West, with what glad- 
ness did the people of Armenia hail them, believing that the 
dawn of deliverance had come! They who had prayed, 
taught by their fathers, "for all holy bishops throughout the 
world," with what joy did they behold the vision of men who 
bore the image of the Cross and had come to deliver the 
tomb of the Saviour from the hands of the godless heathen ! 
And the Armenians joined them for the Holy War. Back 
went the discomfited Crusaders, and the Armenians, who 
had helped them, had to stand and bear the whole brunt of 



252 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

the fury of fresh hordes of Arabs that came up from Egypt 
to wreak their vengeance upon them. Gladstone has said 
that history in future will show what the map of Europe 
would have been if that blighting hurricane of Mohammedan 
invasion in its onward march toward the gates of Vienna, 
where it finally lost its momentum, and, falling down, was 
driven back and back towards the sea, had not met its first 
resistance at the hands of the last remnant of Armenian war- 
riors, who, in their fortresses of Cilicia, fought the desperate 
battle for home and liberty under the banner of the Cross. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 253 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A TRIP THROUGH ARMENIA. 

By Mrs. L. B. Bishop. 

[This article was taken from Mrs. Bishop's book, "Travels in Persia." 
She is a woman widely known as an extensive traveler, and who has writ- 
ten a number of valuable books along this line. She is also a member of 
the Geographical Society of Scotland, and has attained a number of 
honors in other directions.— Ed.] 

My room has an oven in the floor, neatly lined with clay, 
and as I write the women are making bread by a very simple 
process. The oven is well heated by the live embers of ani- 
mal fuel. They work the flour and water dough, to which 
a piece of leaven from the last baking has been added, into 
a flat round cake, about eighteen inches in diameter and half 
an inch thick, place it quickly on a very dirty cushion, and 
clap it against the concave interior of the oven, withdrawing 
the cushion. In one minute it is baked and removed. 

A sloping hole in the floor leads to the fowl-house. The 
skin of a newly-killed sheep hangs up. A pack-saddle and 
gear take up one corner, my bed another, and the owner's 
miscellaneous property fills up the rest of the blackened, 
cracked mud-hovel, thick with the sooty cobwebs and dust 
of generations. The door, which can only be shut by means 
of a wooden bolt outside, is six inches from the ground, so 
that the cats and fowls run in and out with impunity. Be- 



254 STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 

hind my bed there is a doorless entrance to a dark den, full 
of goats' hair, bones and other stores. In front, there is a 
round hole for letting in light, which I persistently fill up with 
a blanket, which is as persistently withdrawn. There is no 
privacy, for though the people are glad to let their rooms, 
they only partially vacate them, and are in and out all the 
time. Outside, there is mud a foot deep, then a steep slope, 
and a disgusting green pool, and the drinking water is nau- 
seous and brackish. 

In this gloomy vault-hke building prayers are said, as in all 
Nestorian churches, at sunrise and sunset by the priest in 
his ordinary clothing, the villagers being summoned by the 
beating of a mallet on a board. 

Dr. Cutts, in his interesting volume, "Christians Under 
the Crescent in Asia,*' gives the following translation of one 
of the morning praises, which forms part of the daily prayer. 
The earlier portion is chanted antiphonally in semi-choirs: 

"Semi-choir — ist. At the dawn of day we praise Thee, O 
Lord: Thou art the Redeemer of all creatures; give us Thy 
mercy a peaceful day, and give us remission of our sins. 

"2d. Cut not of? our hope, shut not Thy door against our 
laces, and cease not Thy care over us. O God ! according to 
our worthiness reward us not. Thou alone knowest our 
weakness. 

"1st. Scatter, O Lord, in the world love, peace and unity. 
Raise up righteous kings, priests and judges. Give peace 
to the nations, heal the sick, keep the whole and forgive the 
sins of all men. 

"2d. In the way that we are going may Thy grace keep 
us, O Lord, as it kept the child David from Saul. Give us 
Thy mercy as we are pressinjo^ on. that we may attain to peace 
recording to Thy will. Tlie grace which kept the propliet 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 255 

Moses in the sea, and Daniel in the pit, and by which the 
companions of Ananias were kept in the fire, by that grace 
deliver us from evil. 

"Whole choir — In the morning we all arise, we all worship 
the Father, we praise the Son, we acknowledge the Holy 
Spirit. The grace of the Father, the mercy of the Son, and 
the hovering of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person, be our 
help every day. Our help is in Thee. In Thee, our true 
Physician, is our hope. Put the medicine of Thy mercy on 
our wounds, and bind up our bruises that we be not lost. 
Without Thy help we are powerless to keep Thy command- 
ments. O Christ, who helpest those who fulfil Thy will, 
keep Thy worshippers. W^e ask with sighing, we beseech 
Thy mercy, we ask forgiveness from that merciful One who 
opens His door to all who will turn unto Him. Every day 
I promise Thee that tomorrow I will repent ; all my days are 
past and gone, my faults still remain. O Christ, have mercy 
upon me, have mercy upon me." * * * 

Many a strange house I have seen, but never anything so 

striking as the dwelHngs of Qasha Ishai. Passing through 

the rude verandah, and through a lofty room nearly dark, 

with a rough stone dais, on which were some mattresses and 

berths one above another, I stumbled in total darkness into 

a room seventy feet by forty, and twenty feet or more high 

in its highest part. It has no particular shape, and wanders 

away from this lofty centre into low, irregular caverns and 

recesses excavated in the mountain side. Parts of the floor 

are of naked rock, parts of damp earth. In one rocky recess 

is a powerful spring of pure water. The roofs are supported 

on barked stemis of trees, black, like the walls, wherever it 

was possible to see them, with the smoke of two centuries. 

Ancient oil-lamps on posts or in recesses rendered darkness 

visible. Goat-skins, with the legs sticking out, containing 

butter, hanging from the blackened crossbeams, and wheat, 



256 STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

apples, potatoes and onions in heaps and sacks, piles of wool, 
spinning-wheels, great wooden cradles here and there, huge 
oil and water-jars, wooden stools, piles of bedding, plows, 
threshing instruments, long guns, swords, spears and gear 
encumbered the floor, while much more was stowed away in 
the dim caverns of the roof. I asked the number of families 
under the roof. "Seven ovens," was the reply. This meant 
seven families, and it is true that three generations, seventy- 
two persons, live, cook, sleep and pursue their avocations 
under that patriarchal roof. 

The Gawar Christians are industrious and inoffensive, and 
have no higher aspirations than to be let alone ; but they are 
the victims of a Kurdish rapacity which leaves them little 
more than necessary food. Their villages usually belong 
to Kurdish Aghas, who take from them double the lawful 
taxes and tithes. The Herkis sweep over the plain in their 
autumn migration "like a locust cloud," carrying ofif the 
possessions of the miserable people, spoiling their granaries 
and driving ofi their flocks. The Kurds of the neighboring 
slopes and mountains rob them by violence at night, and in 
the day by exactions made under threat of death. The latter 
mode of robbery is called "demand.'' The servants of a 
Kurdish Bey enter and ask for some jars of oil or roghan, a 
Kashmir shawl, women's ornaments, a jewelled dagger, or 
a good foal under certain threats, or they show the owner 
a bullet in the palm of the hand, intimating that a bullet 
through his head will be his fate if he refuses to give up his 
property or informs anyone of the demand. 

In this way (among innumerable other instances) my host, 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 259 

a much respected man, has been robbed of five valuable 
shawls, such as descend from mother to daughter, four 
handsome coats and 300 krans in silver. In the last two 
years ten and fifteen loads of wheat have been taken from 
him, and four four-foot jars filled with oil and roghan. Four 
hundred and fifty sheep have Hkewise been seized by vio- 
lence, leaving him with only fifteen; and one night while I 
was at his house fifty-three of the remaining village sheep, 
some of which were his, were driven of¥ in spite of the guards, 
who dare not fire. I was awakened by the disturbance, and 
as it was a light night, I saw that the Kurds who attacked the 
sheepfold were armed with modern guns. The reis of that 
village and this man's brother have both been shot by the 
Kurds. 

The complaints to which I became a listener were made 
by maleks, bishops, priests, headmen and others. I can- 
not vouch for anything which did not come under my own 
observation. Those which I thought worthy of being noted 
down, some of which were pubhshed in the Contemporary 
Review in May and June in two papers, called the "Shadow 
of the Kurd," were either fortified by corroborative circum- 
stances, or rest on the concurrent testimony as to the main 
facts of three independent narrators. 

In some cases I was asked to lay the statements before the 
British consul at Erzeroum, with the names of the narrators 
as the authority on which they rested, but in the greater 
number I was implored not to give names or places, or any 
means of identification. "We are in fear of our lives if we 
tell the truth," they urged. Sometimes I asked them if they 



200 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

would abide by what they told me in the event of an investi- 
gation by the British vice-consul at Van. "No, no, no! we 
dare not!" was the usual reply. Under these circumstances, 
the only course open to me is to withhold the names of per- 
sons and places wherever I was pledged to do so, but as a 
guarantee of good faith I have placed the statements, confi- 
dentially, with the names, in the hands of Her Majesty's 
Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 

Mar — , Bishop of , mentioned previously as a fugitive 

from his diocese, is a fine, pleasant-looking middle-aged 
man, more like a sailor than an ecclesiastic. Late one night, 
in a whisper, with a trusty watch at the door, he told his 
story, through Qasha , in the following words: 

*'I fled, fearing for my life, because many times I had 
spoken against the oppressions. The Kurds have carried 
away most of the sheep and goats, besides taking all they 
wished to have, and they entered through the houses, plun- 
dering everything, and burning too. Their words are, 
''Give or die." I petitioned the government regarding the 
oppressions, and Mohammed Bey came, and by threat of 
death he got my seal, and wrote in my name a letter, saying 
it was all false, there were no oppressions, and he was a very 
good man, and he signed it with my seal, and it went to Stam- 
boul. My seal has now been for one year in the hands of 
Mohammed Bey, who has killed about thirty Christians in 
Berwar. Three months ago I fled to save my life. 

"Seventeen years the oppressions have begun; but it was 
ten years ago when we could easily keep ourselves and raise 

our bread; now we cannot. In — , five years ago, all 

had plenty of dress and bread, and every family kept two 
cows and two hundred or more of sheep. But now, when I 
visited them, I would shame to look at the female persons, so 
naked were they, and so did they hide themselves for shame 
in the dark parts of their houses, for their dress was all in 



. ^TORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 2G1 

pieces, so that their flesh was seen. I was thirsty, and asked 
for milk, and they made reply, *Oh, we have not a cow, or a 
sheep, or a goat; we forget the taste of milk.' And most of 
their fine fields were gone out of their hands by oppressions, 
for they could no longer find money wherewith to pay taxes, 
and they sold them for a vile price. 

"K was the best village in Sopana, and more wealthy 

than any village of Kurds or Christians. There I went and 
asked for some milk. They said: 'Never a goat, or a sheep, 
or a cow have we.' I ask of all the families their conditions, 
and they make reply, with many tears, 'All that we have left 
has left our hands, and we fear for our lives now.' We were 
rich ; now we have not bread to eat from day to day. 

"Seventeen years ago the village of B had fifty families 

of wealthy villagers, but now I only find twelve, and those 
twelve could scarcely find bread. I had asked bread, but I 
could not find it. By day their things are taken by force out 
of their houses; at night their sheep and cattle were driven 
off. They could keep nothing. Our wheat, our sheep, our 
butter, is not our own. The chief, Mohammed Bey, and his 
servants ask of us, saying, "Give, or we will kill you." 

This is a sample of innumerable tales to which I listen 
daily. Daily, from all quarters, men arrive with their com- 
plaints of robbery and violence, and ask the Patriarch to ob- 
tain redress for them; but he is powerless. 

The wretched poverty of the people of this place made a 
very painful impression on me. They may have exagger- 
ated when they told me how terribly they were oppressed by 
the Kurds, who, they say, last year robbed them of 900 
sheep and this year 300, twenty-five and some cattle having 
been driven ofif a few days before ; but it is a simple fact that 
the night of my visit, the twenty-four sheep for which there 
was no room in the stable were carried away by a party of 
well-armed Kurds in the bright moonlight, the helpless 



202 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

shepherds not daring to resist. It is of no use, they say, to 
petition the government; it will not interfere. The Kurds 
come into their houses, they say, and terrify and insult their 
women, and by demands, with violence, take away all they 
have. They say that the money for which they have sold 
their grain, and which they were keeping to pay their taxes 
with, w^as taken by the Kurds last week, and that they will be 
cruelly beaten by the zaptiehs because they cannot pay. 
Their words and air expressed abject terror. 

;!; ^ >;c ;!< ;!< >;< >|c :^ i|c >|c ;|; ;Jc jIj 

T must ask my readers to believe that I crossed the Turkish 
frontier without any knowledge of or interest in the "Ar- 
menian Question f that so far from having any special liking 
for the Armenians, I had rather a prejudice against them; 
that I was in ignorance of the "Erzeroum troubles'' of June, 
1890, and of yet more recent complications, and that the sole 
object of my journey by a route seldom traversed by Euro- 
peans from Urmi to Van was to visit the Patriarch of the 
Nestorians and the Kochanes station of the Archbishop of 
Canterbury's Assyrian Church Mission, and that afterwards 
I traveled to Erzeroum via Bitlis only to visit the American 
missionaries there. So far as I know, I entered Turkey as a 
perfectly neutral and impartial observer, and without any 
special interest in its Christian populations, and it is only the 
"inexorable logic of facts" which has convinced me of their 
wrongs and claims. 

Their little church is poorer than poverty itself; a build- 
ing of undressed stones without mortar, and its length of 



8T0R7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 263 

thirteen feet includes the rude mud dais occupied by the yet 
ruder altar. Its furniture consists of an iron censor, an iron 
saucer, containing oil and a wick, and an earthen flagon. 
There are no windows, and the rough walls are black with 
candle smoke. The young man who showed the church 
took a gospel from the said altar, kissing the cross upon it 
before handing it to me, and then, on seeing that I was inter- 
ested, went home and brought a MS. of St. Matthew's Gos- 
pel, with several rudely-illuminated scenes from our Lord's 
life. "Christos," he said, with a smile, as he pointed to the 
central figure in the first illustration, and so on, as he showed 
me the others, for in each there was a figure of the Christ, 
not crowned and risen, but suffering and humiliated. Next 
morning, in the bitter cold of the hour before sunrise, the 
clang of the mallet on the sounding-board assembled the 
villagers for matins, and to the Christ crowned and risen, 
and "sitting on the right hand of power," they rendered 
honor as divine, thomgh in the midst of the grossest supersti- 
tion and darkness, and for Him whom they "ignorantly 
worship," they are at this moment suffering the loss of all 
things. Their empty sheepfold might have been full today 
if they had acknowledged Him as a prophet and no more. 
In another village, a young man, in speaking of their cir- 
cumstances, said: "We don't know much, but we love the 
Lord Jesus well enough to die for Him." 

Just as it was becoming dark, four mounted men, each 
armed with two guns, rode violently among the mules, 
which were in front of me, and attempted to drive them off. 



2G4 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

In the melee the katirgi was knocked down. The zaptieh 
jumped off his horse, threw the bridle, to me, and shouldered 
his rifle. When they saw the government uniform these 
Kurds drew back, let the mules go, and passed on. The 
whole affair took but a few seconds, but it was significent of 
the unwillingness of the Kurds to come into collision with 
the Turks, and of the power the government could exercise 
in the disturbed districts if it were once understood that the 
mauraders were not to be allowed a free hand. 

VAN. * 

Van may be considered the capital of that part of Kurdis- 
tan which we know as Armenia, but it must be remembered 
that under the present government of Turkey Armenia is a 
prohibited name, and has ceased to be "a geographical ex- 
pression." Cyclopedias containing articles on Armenia, 
and school-books with any allusions to Armenian history, 
or to the geography of any district referred to as Armenia, 
are not allowed to enter Asia Minor, and no foreign maps 
which contain the province of Armenia are allowed to be 
used in the foreign schools, or even to be retained in the 
country. Of the 4,000,000 of the Armenian race, 2,500,000 
are subjects of the Sultan, and, with few exceptions, are dis- 
tinguished for their loyalty and their devotion to peaceful 
pursuits. 

Here as elsewhere I am much impressed with ^the excel- 
lence of the work done by thp American missionaries, who 




A STREET IN THE CITY OF VAN, ARMENIA. 



STORT OF TURRET AND ARMENIA. 267 

are really the lights of these dark places, and by their exem- 
plary and honorable lives furnish that moral model and 
standard of living which is more efficacious than preaching 
in lifting up the lives of a people sunk in the depths of a 
grossly corrupted Christianity. The boys and girls' schools 
in Van are on an excellent basis, and are not only turning 
out capable men and women, but are stimulating the Arme- 
nians to raise the teaching and tone of their own schools in 
the city, with one of which I was greatly pleased. The cre- 
ation of churches, strict in their discipline, and protesting 
against the mass of superstitions which smother all spiritual 
life in the national Armenian Church, is undoubtedly having 
a very salutary effect far beyond the limited membership, 
and is tending to force reform upon an ancient church, which 
contains within herself the elements of resurrection. 

I have already confessed to a prejudice against the Arme- 
nians, but it is not possible to deny that they are the most 
capable, energetic, enterprising and pushing race in West- 
ern Asia, physically superior, and intellectually acute, and, 
above all, they are a race which can be raised in all respects 
to our own level, neither religion, color, customs nor inferi- 
ority in intellect or force constituting any barrier between 
us. Their shrewdness and aptitude for business are re- 
markable, and whatever exists of commercial enterprise in 
Eastern Asia Minor is almost altogether in their hands. They 
have a singular elasticity, as their survival as a church and 
nation shows, and I cannot but think it likely that they may 
have some share in determining the course of events in the 
East, both politically and religiously. As Orientals, they 



268 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

understand Oriental character and modes of thought as we 
never can, and if a new Pentecostal afflatus were to fall upon 
the educated and intelligent young men who are being 
trained in the colleges which the Armenian churches have 
scattered liberally through Asia Minor, the effect upon Tur- 
key would be marvelous. I think most decidedly that re- 
form in Turkey must come through Christianity, and in this 
view the reform and enlightenment of the religion which has 
such a task before it are of momentous importance. 

The town of Van is nearly a mile from the lake, and is 
built on an open level space, in the midst of which stands a 
most picturesque and extraordinary rock, which rises per- 
pendicularly to a height of about 300 feet. It falls abruptly 
at both extremities, and its outHne, which Colonel Severs 
Bell estimates at 1900 yards in length, is emphasized by bat- 
tlemented walls, several towers and a solitary minaret, rising 
above the picturesque irregularity of the ancient fortifica- 
tions. 

The founding of Van is ascribed to Semiramis, who, ac- 
cording to Armenian history, names it Shemiramagerd, and 
was accustomed to resort to its gardens, which she had her- 
self planted and watered, to escape from the fierce heat of the 
summer at Ninevah. The well of Semiramis and other 
w^orks attributed to her bring her name frequently into con- 
versation. 

The town, which is walled, is not particularly attractive, 
but there is one very handsome mosque, and a very interest- 
ing Armenian church, eleven centuries old, dedicated to St. 
Peter and St. Paul. The houses are mean looking, but their 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 269 

otherwise shabby uniformity is broken up by lattice windows. 
The bazars are poorly built, but are clean, well supplied and 
busy, though the trade of Van is sufifering from the general 
insecurity of the country and the impoverishment of the 
peasantry. In the Van bazars ladies can walk about freely, 
encountering neither the hoots of boys nor the petrifying 
Islamic scowl. 

Fifty years ago Venetian beads were the only articles im- 
ported from Europe. Now, owing to the increasing enter- 
prise of the Armenians, every European necessary of life can 
be obtained, as well as many luxuries. Peek and Frean^s 
biscuits, Moir's and Crosse & Blackwell's tinned meats and 
jams, English patent medicines, Coats's sewing cotton, Bel- 
fast Hnens, Berlin wools, Jaeger's vests, and all sorts of ma- 
terials, both cotton and woolen, abound. I did not see such 
a choice and abundance of European goods in any bazar in 
Persia, and in the city of Semiramis, and beneath the tablet 
of Xerxes, there is a bazar devoted to Armenian tailors, and, 
to the clatter of American sewing machines, stitching York- 
shire cloth. One of these tailors has made a heavy cloth 
ulster for me, which the American ladies pronounce perfect 
in fit and "style." 

The Armenians, with their usual industry and thrift, are 
always enlarging their commerce and introducing new im- 
ports. Better than this, they are paying great attention to 
education, and several of their merchants seem to be actu- 
ated by a liberal and enlightened spirit. It is, however, to 
usury, not less than to trade, that they owe their prosperity. 
The presence of Europeans in Van, in the persons of the mis- 



270 STORY OF TURRET AND ARMENIA. 

sionaries and vice-consuls, in addition to the admirable in- 
fluence exerted by the former, has undoubtedly a growing 
tendency towards ameliorating the condition of the Chris- 
tian population. 

In the vilayet it is estimated by Colonel Severs Bell that 
the Christians outnumber the Moslems by 80,000, the entire 
population being estimated at 340,000. In the city of Van, 
with a population estimated by him at 32,000, the Christians 
are beheved to be as 3 to i. 

Though the state of things among the Christians is not 
nearly so bad as in some of the Syrian valleys, the shadow of 
the Kurd is over this paradise. The Armenians complain 
of robbery, with violence, as being of constant occurrence, 
and that they have been plundered till they are unable to pay 
the taxes, and it is obvious that travelers, unless in large 
companies, are not safe without a government escort. In 
each village the common sheepfold is guarded from sunset 
to sunrise by a number of men, a heavy burden on villagers 
whose taxation should ensure them sufficient protection from 
marauders. 

On the last two nights at Undzag and Ghazit I had my 
first experiences of the Turkish odah, or village guest-house 
or khan, of which, as similar abodes will be my lodgings 
throughout my journey to Erzeroum, I will try to give you 
an idea. Usually partially excavated in the hillside and 
partly embedded in the earth, the odah is a large rambling 
room, with an irregular roof, supported on rough tree-stem&. 
In the centre, or some other convenient place, is a mud plat- 



STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 271 

form slightly raised; in the better class of odahs this has a 
fireplace in the wall at one end. Round this on three sides 
is a deep manger, and similar mangers run along the side 
walls, and into the irregular recesses, which are lost in the 
darkness. The platform is for human beings, and the rest 
of the building for horses, mules, oxen, asses and buffaloes, 
with a few sheep and goats probably in addition. The Ka- 
tirgis and the humbler class of travelers sleep among the 
beasts; the remainder, without distinction of race, creed or 
sex, on the enclosed space. Light enters from the door and 
from a few small holes in the roof, which are carefully corked 
up at night, and then a few iron cups of oil with wicks, the 
primitive lamp in general use, hanging upon the posts, give 
forth a smoky light. 

In such an odah there may be any number of human be- 
ings, cooking, eating and sleeping, and from twenty to a 
hundred animals or more, as well as the loads of the pack- 
horses and the arms of the travelers. As the eye becomes 
accustomed to the smoke and dimness, it sees rows of sweet 
ox-faces, with mild eyes and moist nostrils, and wild horse- 
faces surrounding the enclosure, and any number more re- 
ceding into the darkness. Ceaseless munching goes on, and 
a neigh or a squeal from some unexpected corner startles 
one, or there is a horse fight, which takes a number of men 
to quell it. Each animal is a "living stove," and the heat 
and closeness are so unsupportable that one awakes quite 
unrefreshed in the morning in a temperature of 80 degrees. 
The odah is one of the great features of traveling in Eastern 



272 STORY OF TURKEY A^'D ARMENIA. 

Asia Minor. I dined and spent the evenings in its warmth 
and cheeriness, enjoying its wild picturesqueness, but at 
Undzag I pitched my small tent at the stable door, and at 
Ghazit on the roof. 

At sunset that evening 800 sheep were driven into the vil- 
lage sheepfold just below the roof on which my tent was 
pitched, and it was a very picturesque scene— men pushing 
their way through them to find their own sheep by ear-mark, 
women with difficulty milking ewes here and there, big dogs 
barking furiously from the roofs above, and all the sheep 
bleating at once. In winter they are all housed and hand- 
fed. The snow lies six feet deep, and Ghazit can communi- 
cate neither with Bitlis nor Van. It is the "milk of the 
flocks" which is prized. Cow's milk is thought but little of. 
I made my supper of one of the great articles of diet in Tur- 
key — boiled cracked wheat, sugar and yo hoort, artificially 
soured milk, looking like whipped cream. 

I was glad to escape to my tent from the heat and odors of 
the odah, even though I had to walk over sheeps' backs to 
get up to the roof. I had a guard of two men and eight more 
armed with useless matchlock guns watched the sheepfold. 
I was awakened by a tremendous noise, the barking of infu- 
riated dogs close to me, the clashing of arms and the shouts 
of men, mixed up with the rapid firing of guns not far off on 
the mountain-side, so near, indeed, that I could see the 
flashes. It was a Kurdish alarm, but nothing came of it. 
A village which we passed a few hours later was robbed of 
600 sheep, however. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 275 

BITLIS. 

This is the most romantically-situated city that I have seen 
in Western Asia. Five valleys appear to unite in Bitlis and 
to radiate from a lofty platform of rock supported on preci- 
pices, the irregular outHnes of which are emphasized by 
walls and massive square and circular towers, the gigantic 
ruins of Bitlis Castle. 

The massiveness of the houses is remarkable, and their 
courtyards and gardens are enclosed by strong walls. Every 
gate is strengthened and studded with iron, every window 
is heavily barred, all are at a considerable height, and every 
house looks as if it could stand a siege. There is no room 
to spare; the dwellings are piled tier above tier, and the 
flagged footways in front of them hang on the edges of preci- 
pices. Twenty picturesque stone bridges, each one of a 
single arch, span the Tigris and the torrents which unite 
with it. There are ancient ruins scattered through the town. 
It claims immense antiquity, and its inhabitants ascribe its 
castle and some of its bridges to Alexander the Great; but 
antiquarians attribute the former either to the Saracens or 
to the days when an ancient Armenian city, called Paghesh, 
occupied the site of the present Bitlis. It seems like the end 
of the world, though through the deep chasms below it, 
through which the Tigris descends with great rapidity to the 
plains, lies the highway to Diabekir. Suggestions of the 
ancient world abound. The lofty summits towering above 
the basin in which this extraordinary city lies are the termi- 
nation of the Taurus chain, the Niphates of the ancients, on 



276 STOET OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

the highest peak of which Milton locaUzed the descent of 
satan. 

Remote as BitUs seems, and is, its markets are among the 
busiest in Turkey, and its caravan traffic is enormous for 
seven or eight months of the year. Its altitude is only 4700 
feet, and the mercury in winter rarely falls to zero; but the 
snowfall is tremendous, and on the Rahw^an plain snow 
frequently Hes up to the top of the telegraph poles, isolating 
the town and shutting up animals in their stables and human 
beings in their houses for weeks and occasionally months at 
a time. 

Bitlis is one of the roughest and most fanatical and turbu- 
lent of Turkish cities, but the present governor, Raouf 
Pasha, is a man of energy,'and has reduced the town and 
neighborhood to some degree of order. Considerable bodies 
of troops have been brought in, and the garrison consists of 
2500 men. These soldiers are thoroughly well clothed and 
equipped, and look remarkably clean in dress and person. 
They are cheery, soldierly-looking men, and their presence 
gives a little confidence to the Christians. 

The population of Bitlis is estimated at 30,000, of which 
number over 20,000 are Kurds. Both men and women are 
very handsome, and the striking Kurdish costume gives a 
great brilliancy and picturesqueness to this remarkable city. 
The short sleeveless jackets of sheepskin, with the black wool 
outside, which the men are now wearing over their striped 
satin vests, and the silver rings in the noses of the girls, give 
them something of a "barbarian" look, and, indeed, their 
habits appear to be much the same as those of their Karduchi 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARME27IA. 277 

ancestors in the days of Xenophon, except that in the interval 
they have become Moslems and teetotalers ! Here they are 
Sunnis, and consequently do not clash with their neighbors 
the Turks, who abhor the Kurds of the mountains as Kizil- 
bashes. The Kurdish physique is very fine. In fact, I have 
never seen so handsome a people, and their manly and highly 
picturesque costume heightens the favorable effect produced 
by their well-made, lithe, active figures. 

The cast of their features is delicate and somewhat sharp; 
the mouth is small and well formed ; the teeth are always fine 
and white; the face is oval; the eyebrows curved and heavy; 
the eyelashes long; the eyes deep-set, intelligent and roving; 
the nose either straight or decidedly aquiline, giving a hawk- 
like expression; the chin slightly receding; the brow broad 
and clear; the hands and feet remarkably small and slender. 

The women, when young, are beautiful, but hard work 
and early maternity lead to a premature loss of form and to a 
withered angularity of feature which is far from pleasing, 
and which, as they do not veil, is always en evidence. 

The poorer Kurds wear woolen socks of gay and elaborate 
patterns ; cotton shoes Hke the gheva of the Persians ; camlet 
trousers, wide at the bottom like those of sailors; woolen 
girdles of a Kashmir shawl pattern; short jackets and felt 
jerkins without sleeves. The turban usually worn is pecu- 
liar. Its foundation is a peaked felt cap, white or black, with 
a loosely-twisted rope of tightly-twisted silk, wool or cotton, 
wound round it. In the girdle the khanjar is always seen. 
Over it the cartridge belt is usually worn, or two cartridge 
belts are crossed over the chest and back. The girdle also 



278 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

carries the pipe and tobacco pouch, a long knife, a flint and 
steel, and in some cases a shot pouch and a highly-orna- 
mented powder horn. 

The richer Kurds dress like the Syrians. The under- 
garment, which shows considerably at the chest and at the 
long and hanging sleeves, is of striped satin, either crimson 
and white or in a combination of brilliant colors, over which 
is worn a short jacket of cloth or silk, also with long sleeves, 
the whole richly embroidered in gold. Trousers of striped 
silk or satin, wide at the bottom; loose mediaeval boots or 
carnation-red leather; a girdle fastened with knobbed clasps 
of silver as large as a breakfast cup, frequently incrusted with 
turquoises ; red felt skull-caps, round which they wind large 
striped silk shawls, red, blue, orange, on a white or black 
ground, with long fringed ends hanging over the shoulders, 
and floating in the wind as they gallop; and in their girdles 
they carry richly- jeweled khanjars and pistols, decorated with 
silver knobs, besides a number of other glittering appoint- 
ments. The accoutrements of the horses are in keeping, 
and at marriages and other festivities the head-stalls, bridles 
and breastplates are completely covered with pendent silver 
coins. 

The dress of the women is a foil to that of their lords. It 
consists of a blue cotton shirt; very wide trousers, drawn in 
at the ankles ; a silver saucer on the head, from which chains 
depend, with a coin at the end of each ; a square mantle hang- 
ing down the back, clasped by two of its corners round the 
neck, and many strings of coins round the throat; a small 
handkerchief is knotted round the hair, and in presence of a 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 279 

strange man they hold one end of this over the mouth. The 
Turks in BitHs are in a small minority, and the number of 
Armenian Christians is stated at from 2000 to 5000. The 
Old Church has a large monastery outside the town and sev- 
eral churches and schools. The Protestant Armenians have 
a substantial church edifice, with a congregation of about 
400, and a large boarding-school for boys and girls. 

The population is by far the wildest that I have ever seen 
in any Asiatic city, and is evidently only restrained from 
violence by the large garrison. It is not safe for the ladies 
of this mission to descend into the Moslem part of the city, 
and in a residence of more than twenty years they have never 
even passed through the bazars. The missionaries occupy a 
restricted and uncertain position, and the Armenian Chris- 
tians are subject to great deprivations and restraints, and 
are distrusted by the government. Of late, they have been 
much harassed by the search for arms, and Christian gun- 
smiths have been arrested. Even their funeral ceremonies 
are not exempt from the presence of the police, who profess 
to beHeve that firearms are either carried in the place of a 
corpse or are concealed along with it. Placed in the midst 
of a preponderating and fully-armed Kurdish population, 
capable at any moment of being excited to frenzy against 
their faith, they live in expectation of a massacre should cer- 
tain events take place which are regarded as probable within 
two or three years. 

Yangaloo is a typical Armenian village ; its ant-hill dwell- 
ings are half-sunk, and the earth which has been excavated 



280 STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 

is piled up over their roofs and sides. The interior of each 
dwelling covers a considerable area, and is full of compart- 
ments, with divisions formed by low clay walls or by the 
posts which support the roof, the compartments ramifying 
from a widening at the inner end of a long dark passage. In 
Yangaloo, as in other villages on the plains, the earth is so 
piled over the houses as to render them hardly distinguish- 
able from the surrounding ground ; but where a village bur- 
rows into a hillside only a small projection needs an artificial 
roof. The people live among their live-stock; one entrance 
serves for both, and in winter time the animals never leave 
the stables. The fireplace or tandur is in the floor, but is 
only required for cooking purposes, as the heat and steam of 
the beasts keep the human beings comfortably warm. From 
two to five families live in every house, and the people are 
fairly healthy. Xenophon, in his Anabasis, described the 
Armenian dwellings of his day thus: "Their houses were 
underground, the entrance hke the mouth of a well, but 
spacious below^; there were passages dug into them for the 
cattle, but the people descended by ladders. In the houses 
were goats, sheep, cows and fowls, with their young. All 
the cattle were kept in fodder within the walls.'' I have not 
seen the entrance by a well, but have understood that it still 
exists in certain exposed situations. Xenophon mentions 
buried wine, and it is not unlikely that the deep clay-lined 
holes in which grain is stored in some of the villages are an- 
cient cellars, anterior to the date when the Karduchi became 
Moslems and teetotalers. 

All the male members of a family bring their brides to live 



ST0B7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 283 

under the parental roof, and one "burrow" may contain as 
many as three generations of married couples with their 
families. On becoming an inmate of her father-in-law's 
house, each Armenian bride, as in the country districts of 
Persia, has to learn the necessity of silence. Up to the day 
of the birth of the first child, she is the family drudge, and 
may not speak to anyone but her husband, and not to him 
in the presence of his parents. Maternity liberates her 
tongue , she may talk to her child, and then to the females of 
the household; but she may not speak freely till some years 
of this singular novitiate have passed by. She then takes a 
high place in the house, and eventually rules it if she is left a 
widow. The Armenian women are veiled out of doors, but 
only in deference to the Moslems, who regard an uncovered 
head as the sign of a bad women. The girls are handsome, 
but sheepish-looking; their complexions and eyes are mag- 
nificent. 

Kurdistan is scarcely a "geographical expression," and, 
colloquially, the word is used to cover the country inhabited 
by the Kurds. They are a mysterious people, having mam- 
tained themselves in their origmal seats and in a condition 
of semi-independence through all the changes which have 
passed over Western Asia, though they do not exceed nu- 
merically 2,250,000 souls. Such as they were when they 
opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand, they seem to be 
still War and robbery are the business of Kurdish life. 

One great interest of this journey is that It Hes through 
a country in which the Kurds, Turks and Armenians live 
alongside each other; the Kurds being of two classes, the 



284 STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 

tribal, which are chiefly nomads, owning no law but the 
right of the strongest; and the non-tribal or settled, who, 
having been conquered by Turkey, are fairly orderly, and 
are peaceable, except in their relations with the Christians. 
The strongholds of the tribal Kurds are in the wild moun- 
tains of Kurdistan, and especially in the Hakkiari country, 
which is sprinkled with their rude castles and forts. An un- 
curable love of plunder, a singular aptitude for religious 
fanaticism, a recklessness as to the spilling of blood, a uni- 
versal rapacity and a cruel brutality when their passions are 
roused, are among their chief vices. The men are bold, 
sober and devoted to their kinsmen and tribe, and the wo- 
men are chaste, industrious and maternal. Under a firm 
and equitable government, asserting vigorously and persist- 
ently the supremacy of law and the equal rights of race and 
creed, they would probably develop into excellent material. 
The Christians, who, in this part of Kurdistan, are all Ar- 
menians by race, live chiefly on the plains and in the lower 
folds of the hills, and are engaged in pastoral and agricultural 
pursuits. My letters have given a faithful representation of 
them as dwelling with their animals in dark, semi-subterra- 
nean hovels. The men are industrious, thrifty, clannish, 
domestic and not given to vices, except that of intoxication, 
when they have the means and opportunity, and the women 
are hardworking and chaste. Both sexes are dirty, hardy, 
avaricious and superstitious, and ages of wrong have devel- 
oped in them some of the usual faults of oppressed Oriental 
peoples. They cling desperately to their historic Church, 
which is represented among the peasants by priests scarcely 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 285 

less ignorant than themselves. Their bishops constitute 
their only aristocracy. 

On the whole, the same condition of alarm prevails among 
the Armenians as I witnessed previously among the Syrian 
rayahs. It is more than alarm — it is abject terror, and not 
without good reason. In plain English, general lawlessness 
prevails over much of this region. Caravans are stopped 
and robbed, traveling is, for Armenians, absolutely unsafe, 
sheep and cattle are being driven off, and outrages, which it 
would be inexpedient to narrate, are being perpetrated. 
Nearly all the villages have been reduced to extreme poverty 
by the carrying off of their domestic animals, the pillage and, 
in some cases, the burning, of their crops, and the demands 
made upon them at the sword's point for every article of 
value which they possess, while, at the same time, they are 
squeezed for the taxes which the Kurds have left them with- 
out the means of paying. 

In the village of , which has been swept bare by the 

Kurds, the people asserted that the zaptiehs had tied twenty 
defaulters together, and has driven them round and round 
barefooted over the thistles of the threshing-floor, flogging 
them with their heavy whips. My zaptiehs complain of 
the necessity they are under of beatmg the people. They 
say (and I think correctly) that they can never know whether 
a man has a hoard of buried money or not without beating 
him. They tell me also that they know that half of the 
peasants have nothing to pay their taxes with, but that unless- 
they beat them to "get what they can out of them" they would 
be punished themselves for neglect of duty. 



286 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

I have myself seen enough to convince me that, in the 
main, the statements of the people represent accurately 
enough the present reign of terror in Armenia, and that a 
state of matters nearly approaching anarchy is now existing 
in the vilayet of Erzeroum. There is no security at all for 
the lives and property of Christians, law is being violated 
daily, and almost with perfect impunity, and peaceable and 
industrious subjects of the Porte, taxed to an extent which 
should secure them complete protection, are plundered with- 
out redress Their feeble complaints are ignored, or are treated 
as evidence of ''insurrectionary tendencies," and even their 
lives are at the mercy of the increased audacity and aroused 
fanaticism of the Kurds, and this not in nearly inaccessible 
and far-ofT mountain valleys, but on the broad plains of 
Armenia, with telegraph wires above and passable roads be- 
low, and with a Governor-General and the Fourth Army 
Corps, numbering 20,000 seasoned troops, within easy dis- 
tance. 

I have every reason to believe that in the long winter even- 
ings which I have spent in these sociable odahs the peasants 
have talked to me freely and frankly. There are no reasons 
why it should be otherwise, for my zaptiehs are seldom pres- 
ent; Moussa is looking after his horses in distant recesses, 
quite out of hearing, and my servants are Christians. If the 
people speak frankly, I am compelled to believe that the Ar- 
menian peasant is as destitute of political aspirations as he is 
ignorant of political grievances ; that if he were secured from 
the ravages of Moslem marauders he would be as contented 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 287 

as he is loyal and industrious; and this his one desire is ''pro- 
tection from the Kurds'' and from the rapacity of minor offi • 
cials, with security for his life and property. Not on a single 
occasion have I heard a wish expressed for political or ad- 
ministrative reform, or for autonomy. The Armenian peas- 
ants are "of the earth, earthy,'- and the unmolested enjoy- 
ment of material good is their idea of an earthly paradise. 

With regard to the Kurds, they have been remorseless 
robbers for ages, and as their creed scarcely hesitates to give 
the appropriation of the goods of a Kaffir a place among the 
virtues, they prey upon the Syrian and Armenian peasants 
with clear consciences. To rob them by violence and "de- 
mand" month after month and year after year, till they have 
stripped them nearly bare, to cut their throats if they resist, 
to leave them for a while to retrieve their fortunes — "to let 
the sheeps' wool grow," as their phrase is — and then to rob 
them again, is the simple story of the relations between Kurd 
and Christian. They are well armed with modern rifles and 
revolvers. I have rarely seen a Kurd with an old-fashioned 
weapon, and I have never seen a Christian with a rifle, and 
their nearly useless long guns have lately been seized by the 
government The Kurds hate and despise the Turks, their 
nominal rulers; but the Islamic bond of brotherhood is 
stronger than the repulsion either of hatred or contempt, and 
the latent or undisguised sympathy of their co-religionists 
in official positions ensures them, for the most part, immunity 
for their crimes, for the new code, under which the evidence 
of a Christian has become nominallv admissible in a court of 



288 8T0R7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

law, being in direct opposition to the teaching of the Koran, 
to the practice of centuries, to Kurdish fanaticism, and to the 
strong religious feelings and prejudices of those who admin- 
ister justice, is practically, so far as the Christians are con- 
cerned, a dead letter. 




ARMIXXIAN V/OMEN MAKING BRHAD. 



A GROUP OF KOORDS, ARMENIA. 



STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 291 



CHAPTER IX. 

GLADSTONE ON THE ARMENIAN QUESTION. 

A meeting was held in the Town Hall, Chester, England, 
on the 6th of August, for the purpose of discussing the 
claims of the Armenians in Turkey. The assembly-room at 
the Town Hall was crowded to excess, and many thousands 
of persons had to be refused admission. The Duke of West- 
minster presided, and among those present were a great 
number of members of Parliament. 

Mr. Gladstone, who was received with prolonged cheers, 
said: My Lord Duke, my Lords and Ladies and Gentlemen 
— My first observation shall be a repetition of what has al- 
ready been said by the noble duke, who has assured you that 
this meeting is not a meeting called in the interests of any 
party, or having the smallest connection with those differ- 
ences of opinion which naturally and warrantably in this free 
country will spring up in a complex state of afifairs, dividing 
us on certain questions man from man. But, my lord duke, 
it is satisfactory to observe that freedom of opinion and even 
these divisions themselves upon certain questions give in- 
creased weight and augmented emphasis to the concurrence 
of the people to the cordial agreement of the whole nation in 
these matters where the broad principles of common hu- 
manity and common justice prevail. 



292 8T0RT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

A QUESTION OF HUMANITY. 

It is perfectly true that the government whose deeds we 
have to impeach is a Mohammedan government, and it is 
perfectly true that the sufferers under those outrages, under 
those afflictions, are Christian sufferers. The Mohammedan 
subjects of Turkey suffer a great deal, but what they suffer 
is only in the way of the ordinary excesses and defects of an 
intolerably bad government — perhaps the worst on the face 
of the earth. That which we have now to do is, I am sorry to 
say, the opening up of an entirely new chapter. It is not a 
question of indifferent laws indifferently enforced. It is not 
a question of administrative violence and administrative 
abuse. It cuts further and goes to the root of all that con- 
cerns human Hfe in its elementary conditions. But this I 
will say, that if, instead of dealing with the Turkish govern- 
ment and impeaching it for its misdeeds towards Christian 
subjects, we were dealing with a Christian government that 
.was capable of similar misdeeds towards Mohammedan sub- 
jects, our indignation ought to be not less, but greater, than 
it is now. 

THE ATROCITIES PROVED. 

Now, it was my fate, I think some six or more months 
ago, to address a very limited number, not a public assem- 
bly, but a limited number of Armenian gentlemen, and gen- 
tlemen interested in Armenia, on this subject; and at that 
time I ventured to point out that one of our duties was to 
avoid premature judgments. There was no authoritative 
and impartial declaration before the world at that period on 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 293 

the subject of what is known as the Sassoun massacre; that 
massacre to which the noble duke has alluded and with re- 
spect to which, horrible as that massacre was, one of the 
most important witnesses in this case declares that it is 
thrown into the shade and has become pale and ineffective 
by the side of the unspeakable horrors which are being 
enacted from month to month, from week to week, and day 
to day in the different provinces of Armenia. It was a 
duty to avoid premature judgment, and I think it was 
avoided. There was a great reserve, but at last the engine 
of dispassionate inquiry was brought to bear, and then it was 
found that another duty, very important in general in these 
cases, really in this particular instance had no particular 
place at all, and though it is a duty to avoid exaggeration, a 
most sacred duty, it is a duty that has little or no place in the 
case before us, because it is too well known that the powers 
of language, hardly suffice to describe what has been and is 
being done, and that exaggeration, if we were ever so much 
disposed to it, is in such a case really beyond our power. 
Those are dreadful words to speak. It is a painful office to 
perform, and nothing but a strong sense of duty could gather 
us together between these walls or could induce a man of 
my age and a man who is not wholly without other difficul- 
ties to contend with to resign for the moment that repose 
and quietude which is the last of many great earthly bless- 
ings remaining to him in order to invite you to enter into a 
consideration of this question — I will not say in order to 
invite you to allow yourselves to be flooded with the sicken- 
ing details that it involves. I shall not attempt to lead you 



294 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

into that dreadful field, but I make this appeal to you. I do 
hope that everyone of you will for himself and herself en- 
deavor in such a degree as your position may allow of you 
to endeavor to acquire some acquaintance with them, be- 
cause I know that, when I say that a case of this kind puts 
exaggeration out of the question, I am making a very broad 
assertion, which would in most cases be violent, which would 
in all ordinary cases be unwarrantable. But those who will 
go through the process I have described, or even a limited 
portion of the process, will find that the words are not too 
strong for the occasion. What witnesses ought we to call 
before us? I should be disposed to say that it matters very 
little what witness you call. So far as the character of the 
testimony you will receive is concerned, the witnesses are all 
agreed. At the time that I have just spoken of, six or eight 
months ago, they were private witnesses. Since that time, 
although we have not seen the detailed documents of public 
authority, yet we know that all the broader statements which 
had been made up to that time and which have made the 
blood of this nation fun cold, have been confirmed and veri- 
fied. They have not been overstated, not withdrawn, not 
qualified, not reduced, but confirmed in all their breadth, in 
all their horrible substance, in all their sickening details. 

The whole substance of the situation may be summed up 
in four awful words — plunder, murder, rape and torture. 
Every incident turns upon one or upon several of those awful 
words. Plunder and murder you would think are bad 
enough, but plunder and murder are almost venial by the 
side of the work of the ravisher and the work of the torturer. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 295 

as it is described in these pages, and as it is now fully and 
authentically known to be going on. I will keep my word, 
and I will not be tempted by — what shall I say? — the dra- 
matic interest attached to such exaggeration of human ac- 
cion as wx find here to travel into the details of the facts. 
They are fitter for private perusal than they are for pubHc 
discussion. I will not be tempted to travel into them ; I will 
ask you for a moment, any of you who have not yourselves 
verified the particulars of the case, to credit me with speak- 
ing the truth, until I go on to consider who are the doers of 
these deeds. In all ordinary cases when we have before us 
instances of crime, perhaps of very horrible crime — for ex- 
ample, there is a sad story in the papers today of a massacre 
in a portion of China — we at once assume that in all coun- 
tries, unfortunately, there are malefactors, there are plun- 
derers whose deeds we are going to consider. Here, my 
lord duke, it is nothing of the kind; we have nothing to do 
here with what are called the dangerous classes of the com- 
munity; it is not their proceedings which you are asked to 
consider; it is the proceedings of the government of Con- 
stantinople and its agents. 

THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBLE. 

There is not one of these misdeeds for which the govern- 
ment at Constantinople is not morally responsible. Now, 
who are these agents? Let me tell you very briefly. They 
fall into three classes. The first have been mentioned by the 
noble duke — namely, the savage Kurds, who are, unhappily, 
the neighbors of the Armenians, the Armenians being the 



296 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

representatives of one of the oldest civilized Christian races, 
and being beyond all doubt one of the most pacific, one of 
the most industrious and one of the most intelligent races. in 
the world. These Kurds are by them ; they are wild, savage 
clans. There was but one word, my lord duke, in your ad- 
dress that I should have been disposed to literally criticize, 
and it was the expression that fell from you that the Sultan 
had "organized" these Kurds. They are, in my belief, in no 
sense organized — that is to say, there is no more organiza- 
tion among them than is to be found, say, in a band of rob- 
bers; they have no other organization, being nothing but a 
band of robbers. These the Sultan and the government at 
Constantinople have enrolled, though in a nominal fashion, 
not with any military discipline, into pretended cavalry regi- 
ments, and then set them loose with the authority of soldiers 
of the Sultan to harry and destroy the people of Armenia. 
Well, these Kurds are the first of the agents in this horrible 
business; the next are the Turkish soldiers, who are in no 
sense behind the Kurds in their performances; the third are 
the peace officers, the police and the tax-gatherers of the 
Turkish government; and there seems to be a deadly compe- 
tition among all these classes which shall most prove itself 
an adept in the horrible and infernal work that is before 
them; but above them and more guilty than they are the 
higher officers of the Turkish government. 

THREE PROPOSITIONS. 

I think there are certain matters, such as those which have 
been discussed today and discussed in many other forms, on 





.^^^. 




STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 299 

which it is perfectly possible to make up our minds. And 
what I should say is, that the whole position may be summed 
up in three brief propositions I do not know to which of 
these propositions to assign the less or the greater import- 
ance. It appears to me that they are probably each and 
everyone of them absolutely indispensable. The first prop- 
osition is this : You ought to moderate your demands. You 
ought to ask for nothing but that which is strictly necessary, 
and that possibly according to all that we know of the pro- 
posals before us, the rule has been rigidly compHed with. I 
do not hesitate to say, ladies and gentlemen, that the clean- 
est and clearest method of deahng with this subject, if we 
should have done it, would have been to tell the Turk to 
march out of Armenia. He has no right to remain there, 
and it would have been an excellent settlement of the ques- 
tion. But it is by no means certain that Europe, or even the 
three Powers, would have been unanimous in seeking after 
that end. Therefore, let us part with everything except what 
is known to be indispensable. Then I come to the other two 
rules, and of these the first is that you should accept no 
Turkish promises. They are absolutely and entirely worth- 
less They are worse than w^orthless, because they may 
serve to elude a few persons who, without information or 
experience, naturally would suppose, when promises are 
given, that there is something like an intention of fulfilment. 
Recollect that no scheme is worth having unless it be sup- 
ported by efficient guarantees entirely outside the promises 
of the Turkish government. There is another word which 
I must speak, and it is this : Don't be too much afraid if you 



300 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

hear introduced into this discussion a word that I admit, in 
ordinary cases, ought to be excluded from all diplomatic 
proceedings, namely, the word coercion. Coercion is a 
word perfectly well understood in Constantinople, and it is 
a word highly appreciated in Constantinople. It is a drastic 
dose, which never fails of its aim when it is administered in 
that quarter. Gentlemen, I would not use these words if I 
had not myself personally had large and close experience of 
the proceedings of the Turkish government. I say, first 
make your case good, and when your case is made good, 
determine that it shall prevail. Grammar has something to 
do with this case. Recollect that while the word "ought" 
sounded in Constantinople, passes in thin air, and has no 
force or solidity whatever attaching to it; on the contrary, 
the brother or sister monosyllable, the word "must,-' is per- 
fectly understood ; and it is a known fact, supported by posi- 
tive experience, which can be verified upon the map of Eu- 
rope, that a timely and judicious use of this word never fails 
for its effect. Gentlemen, I must point out to you that we 
have reached a very critical position indeed. How are three 
great governments in Europe, ruling a population o.f more 
than 200,000,000 souls, with perhaps eight or ten times the 
population of Turkey, with twenty times the wealth of Tur- 
key, with fifty times the influence and power of Turkey, who 
have committed themselves in this matter before the world — 
I put it to you, that if they recede before an irrational resist- 
ance — and remember that I have in the first instance postu- 
lated that our demands should be reasonable — if they recede 
before the irrational resistance of the Sultan and the Otto- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 301 

man government, they are disgraced in the face of the world. 
Every motive of duty coincides with every motive of self- 
respect, and, my lord duke, you, yourself, let drop a word 
which is a frightful word, unhappily not wholly out of place, 
the word 

"EXTERMINATION." 

There has gone abroad, I don't say that I feel myself com- 
petent to judge the matter, I don't think I do, but there 
has gone abroad and there is widely entertained a beHef that 
the recent proceedings of the Turkish government in Arme- 
nia particularly, but not in Armenia exclusively, are founded 
upon deliberate determination to exterminate the Christians 
in that empire. I hope it is not true, but at the same time I 
must say that there are evidences tending to support it, and 
the grand evidence which tends to support it is this* the per- 
fect infatuation of the Turkish government. Now, in my 
time there have been periods when Turkey was ruled by men 
of honesty and ability. I will say that until about thirty years 
ago you could trust the word of the Turkish government as 
well as any government in Europe; you might not approve 
of their proceedings, but you could trust their word. But 
a kind of judicial infatuation appears to have come down 
upon them. What has happened in Turkey? To hear of 
this vaunting on the part of its government, and this game 
of brag that is from time to time being played, that it cannot 
compromise its dignity, it cannot waive any of its rights. 
What would come of its rights in one-third part of its em- 
pire? W^ithin my lifetime Turkey has been reduced by one- 



302 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

third part oi her territory, and 16,000,000 or 18,000,000 people 
inhabiting some of the most beautiful and formerly most 
famous countries in the world, who were under the Ottoman 
rule, are now as free as we are The Ottoman government 
are as well aware of that as we, and yet we find it pursuing 
these insane courses. On the other hand, my lord duke 
most judiciously referred to the plan of government that was 
introduced in the Lebanon about 1861, whereby a reasonable 
share of stability to local institutions and popular control 
has been given in Turkey, and the results have been most 
satisfactory. There is also a part of the country, although 
not a very large part, where something hke local self-gov- 
ernment is permitted, and it has been very hopeful in its 
character. But when w^e see these things — on the one hand 
that these experiments in a sense of justice have all suc- 
ceeded, and that when adapted to the Greeks and the Bulga- 
rians and four or five other States have resulted in the loss 
of those States, then I say that the Turkish government is 
evidently in such a state of infatuation that it is fain to believe 
it may, under certain circumstances, be infatuated enough to 
scheme the extermination of the Christian population. Well, 
this is a sad and terrible story, and I have been a very long 
time in telling it, but a very small part of it ; but I hope that, 
having heard the terms of the resolution that will be sub- 
mitted to you, you will agree that a case is made out. I for 
one, for the sake of avoiding other complications, would re- 
joice if the Government of Turkey would come to its senses. 
If only men like Friad Pasha and Ali Pasha, who were in the 
government of Turkey after the Crimean war, could be raised 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 303 

from the dead, and could inspire the Turkish poHcy with 
their spirit and with their principles ! That is, in my opinion, 
what we ought all to desire, and though it would be more 
agreeable to clear Turkey than to find her guilty of these 
terrible charges, yet if we have the smallest regard to hu- 
manity, if we are sensible at all of what is due to our own 
honor after the steps which have been taken within the last 
twelve or eighteen months, we must interfere. We m.ust be 
careful to demand no more than what is just — but at least as 
much as is necessary — and we must be determined that, with 
the help of God, that which is necessary, and that which is 
just, shall be done, whether there will be a response or 
whether there be none. 



304 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE KURDS. 

By Jesse Malek Yonan, of Oroomiah, Persia, at present in Rush Medical 
College, Chicago. 

The recent reports concerning the massacre of the Arme- 
nians in Turkey and other places have been looked upon by 
many as incredible; not, however, to those acquainted with 
the character of the Kurds, who were the chief perpetrators. 
My intimate acquaintance with this people, and my knowl- 
edge of their hostility in my own Persian home, will help me 
to give a brief account of their history and present condition 
and also of the cruelties practiced by them on the unfortu- 
nate Christians of the Orient. 

THEIR COUNTRY. 

Kurdistan, which is a name very common in the East, is 
no more than a geographical appellation for the entire coun- 
try inhabited by the Kurds. Its area is estimated to be 
more than 50,000 square miles. This region has no political 
boundaries, but includes both Persian and Turkish territory. 
It may be said to extend from Turkish Armenia on the north 
to the plains of the Aliddle Tigris and the Luristan moun- 
tains on the south. It contains many other people besides 
Kurds, among whom are Turks, Nestorians, Chaldeans, Per- 
sians and Armenians. 




A "MOLLAH" NARRATING THE P.ATTLE OF KERHALA IN THE 
BAZAAR AT TABRIZ. PERSIA. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 307 

THEIR ORIGIN. 

The origin and ancestry of the Kurds, Hke that of most 
Eastern nations, is still unsettled among ethnologists. They 
stand among the Asiatic races, Hke the Basques and Lapps 
in Europe, wrapt in obscurity. Whether they are of Iranian 
or Turanian origin, whether they are descendants of Medes 
or Parthians, or whether they are the Gardu, who at one time 
held the mountains north of Assyria, no one can sa)^ with 
certainty. It is safest to identify them with the Karduchie, 
with whom Xenophon and the ten thousand had so long a 
struggle. In regard to the Kurds, history is silent, except 
at certain epochs when they touched the more civilized 
world. It is said by some Eastern historians that the fa- 
mous Saladin was a Kurd. Several governments of West- 
ern Asia have claimed them; but a people so rebelHous has 
ever been a thorn in the side of every ruling power. In 1639 
A. D. a treaty between one of the Sultans of Turkey and the 
Shah Sefavi, of Persia, established a frontier line between 
the two empires, which line, since that date, has served as a 
nominal division between the two. Their subsequent his- 
tory is obscure They are a people without a literature and 
almost without a history. They number about 2,000,000, 
700,000 of whom are under Persia, the rest being under Tur- 
key. They are divided into many independent tribes. The 
tribal feeHng is very strong, a very fortunate thing for Tur- 
key and Persia, for could the Kurds be firmly united, these 
empires might often suffer much at their hands. At the 



308 STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

present time, however, they are more subject to discipline 
than at any previous epoch in their history. 

OCCUPATION AND CHARACTER. 

Some of them are nomadic, not, however, wandering in- 
definitely, for they have well-defined circuits which they 
make annually. They spend the summer in the cool, brac- 
ing air of Northwestern Persia, and the winter in the milder 
plains of Assyria. It is interesting to watch them on the 
march during these migrations, moving with families, tents, 
flocks and herds, the hardy females bearing their little ones 
in cradles on their backs, the older children with only their 
heads emerging, being packed in large sacks, often with 
lambs to balance them, and thus slung over the backs of 
oxen or cows. Thus they move as the season advances, 
until midsummer finds them near the summits of the moun- 
tains or plateaus, in the neighborhood of perpetual snow, 
among cool rills, luxuriant pastures and blossoming flowers. 

But some of them are agricultural people who live in vil- 
lages, tilling ground on the plains and hillsides. It is amus- 
ing to notice them on their way to their work, dragging along 
their sluggish Hmbs as though they might drop asleep at 
any moment. They will waste two hours before they even 
start to work. After an hour of pretended labor, in which 
they have really accomplished nothing, they will have to sit 
down and smoke awhile. Up they are again, their long 
sticks in hand, to urge on the yokes of oxen which draw the 
wooden plows. Hardly have they begun afresh before they 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 309 

axe again ready for a rest ; out come the pipes, and down the 
hill the laborers go for a draught from a cool spring in the 
valley below. In this way they carry on all their work. 
Poor creatures, they are good for nothing. Others are 
shepherds. It is really inspiring to see how devoted they 
are to their sheep. See this one as he goes before his flocks. 
His staff is in his hand, and from his shoulder hangs a bag 
which contains his provisions for the day. Now he whistles, 
thus indicating to the sheep his desire that they travel rap- 
idly. He has given them names, and often calls his favorite 
to him that he may pet her. Again we see him sitting on a 
rock, with his fond flock gathering around him, as he sings 
and plays his flute. How beautifully this illustrates the 
words of our Lord: '*He calleth his own sheep by name and 
leadeth them out. He goeth before them and the sheep fol- 
low him, for they know his voice.'' This is a beautiful and 
peaceful picture of the Kurds. But let us look at him as he 
rides his Arabian steed, gun on shoulder, sword at side and 
spear in hand — a veritable fiend of death. His dark eyes 
and gloomy countenance are fearful to look upon. These 
warriors sleep most of the day, and at sunset start on their 
robbing expeditions. They descend to the numerous vil- 
lages in the valleys and drive away the cattle and flocks, no 
one daring to oppose them, as their very name strikes terror 
to the hearts of the people. Robbing is their business, and 
they believe that God created them for this purpose only. I 
myself have conversed with many of them, and asked them 
why they steal. They answer that every man has some 
occupation. One is a judge, one a merchant, one a tar- 



310 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

nier, and *'we are robbers." They make their Hving in this 
way. "Why don't you work?" I ask. "We do not know 
how to work." "Why do you kill people?" "When we meet 
a man that we wish to rob, if we find him stronger than our- 
selves, we have to kill him in order to rob him." "But you 
are Hable to be killed some day." "We must die at some 
time," they answer. "What is the difference between dying 
now and a few days hence?" 

They are always ready to defend their cause, and anyone 
who has not killed at least one or two men is not considered 
w^orthy to live. They are very cruel and as rugged as the 
region they occupy. Like Cain, their hand is against every- 
body, and everybody's hand against them. They are very 
brave and have no fear on the field of battle. In the late 
Russo-Turkish war they are said to have been Turkey's best 
soldiers. From the Persian Kurds several regiments are 
raised for the Persian army, which always prove themselves 
the bravest. 

RELIGION AND LANGUAGE. 

Their faith is that of the Sunni sect of Orthodox Mussul- 
mans. They pretend to be very religious, and offer their 
prayers five times every day. Before leaving their homes for 
the purpose of robbery, they will offer a prayer, believing that 
God will hear them. They are very superstitious and big- 
oted. Their language is Koormanji (Kurdish). It is 
thought to be a branch of old Persian intermingled with 
alien words. It has never been reduced to writing The 
Kurds are profoundly ignorant and stupid, with neither 



STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 311 

books nor schools. Of the whole race, not one in ten thous- 
and can read. 

HOUSES AND WOMEN. 

The most of the summer they hve in tents in the cool 
places on the mountain slopes and valleys. Their winter 
houses are built underground, most of them having a single 
room, with one or two small holes on the top for light. This 
serves for a bedroom, parlor, kitchen and stable. In the 
daytnne they are all away; towards sunset they come in one 
by one, at least a score of them, men, women and children, 
but already the hens have found their resting-place; sheep, 
oxen and horses each in their corner. After it is quite dark, 
coarse stale bread and sour milk are brought out for supper. 
Two spoons and one big dish are sufficient for all; each in 
his turn tries the spoon. Of course, this is always done in 
the dark, as they have no lights. Now it is bedtime, and one 
after another finds his place under the same quilt, without a 
pillow or bed, except some hay spread on the floor. In a 
few minutes all are fast asleep, and soon the heavy breathing 
and snoring of men and cattle is mingled, and the effect is 
anything but a sweet sound. The temperature of the room 
is sometimes as high as a hundred Fahr., and swarms of 
fleas (one of which would be enough to disturb the rest of an 
entire American family) attack the wild Kurds, but he stirs 
not until morning, the fleas being exhausted sooner than the 
men. 

Their women wear an exceedingly picturesque costume. 
They have dark complexions, with eyes and hair intensely 



312 STORY OF TURKEY AJsW ARMENIA. 

black. Their beauty is not of a refined type, but by a mass 
of paint is made sufficiently attractive for their easily-pleased 
husbands. Almost all the work, both in and out of doors, is 
done by them. Early in the morn'^^-g-, when they are through 
their home work, they hasten to the field to attend the flocks, 
or gather fuel for use in winter. In the evening they come 
in with large burdens on their backs, which appear to be 
quite enough for two donkeys to carry. So industrious are 
they that they frequently spin on their way to and from work, 
singing all the while, apparently as happy as if all the world 
were theirs. The difficulties and ailments of womanhood 
are nothing to them. A woman with child will go out among 
the rocks, climbing the mountain heights. Her time of 
labor is at hand, but she does not cease her usual toil. In 
the evening the woman may be seen coming singing down 
the mountam, a heavy burden of fuel on her back and in ner 
arms the child to which she has given birth during the day. 
Even this the men do not appreciate or reward. They will 
not hesitate, when it is rainmg, to drag the women from the 
tent in order to make room for a favorite steed. 

A WOMAN PHYSICIAN'S ACCOUNT OP A REMARKABLE OVER- 
i^AND JOURNEY THROUGH THE KURDS' LAND. 

No civilized woman, says the San Francisco Chronicle, 
had ever made the journey from Oroomia, in Persia, through 
the modntams that separate it from Armenia and Kurdistan, 
and over the plains to ancient Nineveh, that were the the- 
atre ot the recent Turkish outrages against the Christian 




4 




STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 315 

Armenians, prior to the year 1874, in which year Dr. Cathe- 
rine V. C. Scott, of this city, made the journey. 

Mrs. Scott was at that time in charge of the College for 
Nestorians at Oroomia, Persia, and her journey was a self- 
imposed task, taken in the heroic endeavor to fulfil a duty 
which her father had annually performed unremittingly for 
twenty-four years. The mission of which the Rev. J. G. 
Cochran had charge embraced all the cities and villages west 
of the Tigris and north of the river Zab. Mrs. Scott, his 
daughter, was born at the village of Seiro, and remained as 
a pupil of the mission college until sixteen years of age, 
when she was sent to Philadelphia to be educated in the 
science of medicine at the Allopathic College. At the age 
of twenty she was recalled to Oroomia. 

This she related to a gathering of friends at her house, 
727 Geary street, as a preface to a most interesting account 
of her journey to Nineveh and return. 

"On my return from Philadelphia my father met us at 
Constantinople. He had been compelled by the refusal of 
the Missionary Board to close the school earher and to make 
a forced journey on horseback, traveling twenty-two hours 
out of twenty-four. On the return trip before Oroomia was 
reached my father was seized with typhoid fever and died 
shortly afterward. Being the only one at the mission who 
thoroughly understood the language of the Nestorians, the 
charge of my father devolved upon me, and I was forced to 
superintend the institution, as well as to practice medicine 
and treat the sick at the mission. I remained in this capa- 
city for six years, until the close of the seminary." 



316 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Mrs. Scott spoke in a pleasant, conversational tone, and 
related the details of her life at the college and of the subse- 
quent journey in a reminiscent vein, without previous prepa- 
ration, just as her memory recalled the events. She began 
her narrative with the story of the famine, which resulted 
from a corner in grain, by which the people of Oroomia were 
compelled by the governor of the province in which Oroomia 
is situated to pay fabulous prices for their food, resulting in 
their being reduced to a state of beggary. During this fam- 
ine Mrs. Scott says she prescribed for as many as 500 pa- 
tients a day, and dispensed medicines and alms, herself super- 
intending the distribution of $450,000 subscribed by x\meri- 
can Jews and Protestants for the relief of the poor. "I have 
seen fully 10,000 starving, miserable people in front of the 
gates of the seminary, in rags and kneeling in the snow," 
said she, "begging, praying for relief; at nights sleeping un- 
der the hamams (baths), in the most miserable poverty and 
dying of dirt and disease." 

She related how^ these miserable creatures would crowd 
about the horses of the missionaries, and falling upon their 
knees would clasp their arms about the legs of the horses. 
It having been a part of her father's duties to travel once a 
year to each of the villages within the district, she, together 
with the Rev. William Stocking and his wife and a numerous 
train of servants and attendants, undertook the journey. 

In crossing the mountains from Persia into Armenia they 
encountered most dangerous passes and had many times 
narrowly escaped death. The roads were almost impassable 
and were purposely kept in such condition by the Armenians 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 317 

to prevent the incursions of bloodthirsty Kurds. She told 
of conditions of the most absolute poverty and degradation 
in which the mountaineers of Armenia dwelt. Her descrip- 
tion of the city of Amadieh, a city of some 15,000 Kurds, 
Hkened the rock upon which the city stands to an immense 
bandbox, approach to which was made over a rough-hewn 
trail, guarded by iron gates. ''It is the people of this city," 
said she, 'Svho have taken so prominent a part in the recent 
massacres." 

She told of several most perilous experiences of herself 
and party of crossing the river Zab on a narrow bridge of 
woven wickerwork, 240 feet in length, suspended at a great 
height above the foaming torrent beneath; of an encounter 
with Kurdish robbers ; of a narrow escape of herself and her 
Arabian steed from death by falling over a cliff into a bot- 
tomless ravine ; of sliding down the mountain-side upon bur- 
laps ; of the sunstroke and subsequent insanity of Mr. Stock- 
ing; the illness and death of Mrs. Stocking; of the massacre 
of a caravan of seventeen Europeans by Kurds, whose fate 
their own party narrowly escaped. After their arrival at 
Montserrat, Mrs. Stocking having succumbed to her illness, 
was buried, and the party proceeded home without further 
adventure. The tale of the horrors of that journey were 
sufficient to have shattered the mind and health of strong 
men, yet Mrs. Scott bore them with remarkable fortitude 
and courage, and spoke of some pleasant incidents of her life 
in that country with fervor and delight. 



318 ^TORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 



CHAPTER XL 

HOME-LIFE OF THE ARMENIANS. 

The ceremonies at an Armenian birth are scarcely less 
superstitious than the Turkish rites. They are of a more 
vague and indefinite character. If possible, a mother and 
child should not be left alone the first few days ; but the broom 
is replaced by the venerated image of the Holy Virgin or 
some saint, put on guard over the bed. GarHc is not resorted 
to as a safeguard against the evil eye, but holy water is nightly 
sprinkled over child and mother, who are also fumigated 
with the holy olive branch. The company received on these 
occasions is quiet, and only part of the Turkish show and 
pageantry is displayed in the adornment of the bed. The 
child has the same Bologna sausage appearance, modified by 
a European baby's cap. 

About the ninth day the bath ceremony takes place; but 
instead of the mother's body providing food for her guests 
by the honeyed plaster of the Turkish woman, all sit down 
to a substantial luncheon, in which the Yahlan dolma and 
the lakana turshou (sauerkraut) play a prominent part, and 
wdiich is brought into the bath on this occasion. 

As the christening takes place within eight days, it cannot 
on that account be witnessed by the mother, who is unable 
to attend the church services before the fortieth day, when 
she goes to receive the benediction of purification. Part of 



STOBY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 319 

the water used for the christening is presumably brought 
from the river Jordan, and the child is also rubbed with holy 
oil. The service concluded, the party walk home in proces- 
sion, headed by the midwife carrying the baby. Refresh- 
ments are offered to the company, w^ho soon afterwards re- 
tire. A gift of a gold cross or a fine gold coin is made to the 
child by the sponsors. 

No system of diet is followed in the rearing of Armenian 
children, nor are their bodies refreshed by a daily bath. Few 
people in the East bathe their children, for a general idea 
prevails that it is an injurious custom and a fertile cause of 
sickness. Kept neither clean nor neat, they are allowed to 
struggle through infancy in a very irregular manner. Yet 
in spite of this they are strong and healthy. 

ARMENIAN WEDDINGS. 

The Armenian fiancailles, although contracted in a very 
simple fashion, are not easily annulled, and can only be set 
aside for very serious reasons. 

A priest, commissioned by the friends of the aspirant, 
makes the proposals of marriage to the young lady's parents. 
Should the ofifer be accepted, he is again sent, accompanied 
by another priest, to present to the fiancee a small gold cross 
bought by her betrothed for the benefit of the church, and of 
a price proportioned to the means of the family. 

Girls are given in marriage at a very early age ; some when 
they are but twelve years old ; but men seldom marry before 
they are twenty-one. 



320 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Like the Turkish wedding, it takes place on a Monday. 
A priest is sent by the bride's parents to inform those of the 
bridegroom that all is ready and the Duhun may begin. On 
the Friday, invitations are issued, and the bride is taken to 
the bath with great ceremony. On the Saturday, musicians 
are called in, and all the young maidens assemble to partake 
of a feast intended especially for them, and extended to the 
poor, who come in flocks to share in the good things. 

Next day this festivity is repeated ; the dinner is served at 
3, and the young men are allowed to wait upon the girls — a 
rare privilege, equally pleasing to either sex, at other times 
excluded from each other's society, and, it is needless to say, 
that they now make the most of their opportunities. 

As soon as this repast is over, the married people sit down 
to the wedding dinner in a patriarchal fashion, husband and 
wife side by side, w^hile the young men are the last to partake 
of the bridal repast. In the evening, they are again admitted 
to the company of the ladies, on the plea of handing refresh- 
ments to them. About lo o'clock the bride is taken into 
another room by her friends, who place upon her head a 
curious silver plate, over which a long piece of scarlet silk is 
thrown, falling to her feet, secured at the sides by ribbons, 
enveloping her in a complete bag, drawn tight at the top of 
her head, under the silver plate; two extraordinary-looking 
wings, called sorgooch, made of stiff cardboard, covered 
with feathers, are- fastened on each side of the head. When 
this disguise is complete, the bride, blindfolded by her veil, 
is led forth from the apartment, and conducted by her father 
or nearest male relative to open a round dance, during the 



jm''. 




STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 323 

performance of which money is showered over her. She is 
then led to a corner, where she sits awaiting the arrival of the 
bridegroom in the solitude of her crimson cage. 

The bridegroom's toilet begins early in the afternoon. He 
is seated in the middle of the room, surrounded by a joyous 
company of friends; the gingahar, or best man, and a host of 
boys arrive, accompanied by the band of miusic sent in search 
of them. 

The barber, an all-important functionary, must not be 
overlooked. Razor in hand, girded with his silk scarf, his 
towl over one shoulder, and a species of leather strap over 
the other, he commences operations, prolonged during an 
indefinite period, much enlivened by his gossip and bon 
mots, and turned to his advantage by the presents he re- 
ceives from the assembled company, who, one by one, sus- 
pend their gifts on a cord, stretched by him for the purpose 
across the room. These gifts consist chiefly of towels, pieces 
of cloth, scarfs, etc. When the gossip considers the gener- 
osity of the company exhausted, he gives the signal for the 
production of the wedding garments, which, brought in 
state, together with the bridegroom's presents to his bride, 
must receive the benediction of the priest before they can be 
used. 

After the evening meal has been partaken of, the gifts, ac- 
companied by the musicians, are conveyed to the bride, the 
company following with the bridegroom, who walks be- 
tween two torches, and is met at the door by another band of 
music. 

On entering the presence of his future mother-in-law and 



324 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

her nearest relatives, he receives a gift from her, and respect- 
fully kisses her hand. Allowed a few moment's rest, he is 
seated on a chair between two flaring torches, after which he 
is led into the presence of his veiled bride, to whom he ex- 
tends his hand, which she takes, extricating her own with 
difficulty from under her duvak, and is assisted to descend 
from her sofa corner, and stands facing her betrothed with 
her forehead reclining against his. A short prayer, called the 
''half-service," is read over the couple, their hands locked 
together, must not be loosened till they arrive at the street- 
door, when two bridesmaids, supporting the bride on each 
side, leads her at a slow pace to the church. 

The procession is headed by the bridegroom and his men, 
followed by the bride and the ladies; no person is allowed 
to cross the road between the two parties. On entering the 
sacred edifice, the couple, making the sign of the cross three 
times, offer a prayer, believing that whatever they ask at this 
moment will be granted them ; they then approach the altar- 
steps and stand side by side. 

The first part of the service is read by the priest, standing 
on the altar-steps; the couples, placed in a row before him, 
with the best men and boys behind him. He asks each 
couple separately, first the bridegroom, and then the bride, 
the following question: ''Chiorus topalus cabullus?" (BHnd 
or lame, is he or she acceptable), to which the parties answer 
in the affirmative. Should either person object to the union, 
the objection is accepted, and the marriage cannot be pro- 
ceeded with ; but incidents of this kind are rare. 

After the formalities of the acceptance have been gone 



STOKY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 325 

through, the couple stand facing each other, with their 
heads touching, and a small gold cross is tied with a red 
silken string on the forehead of each, and the symbol of the 
Holy Ghost pressed against them. The ceremony termi- 
nates by the partaking of wine, after which the married pair 
walk hand-in-hand to the door of the church; but from the 
church to her home the bride is once more supported by the 
bridesmaids. The moment they are about to cross the 
threshold, a sheep is sacrificed, over whose blood they step 
into the house. 

When husband and wife are seated side by side, the guests 
come one by one, kiss the crosses on their foreheads, and 
drop coins into a tray for the benefit of the officiating priests. 

The bride is now once more led to her solitary corner ; the 
veil, which she has been wearing all the time of the ceremony, 
is momentarily lifted from her face, and she is refreshed with 
a cup of cofifee, into which she drops money as she gives it 
back; a male child is then placed on her knees for a short 
time. This formality is followed by a regular scramble for 
her stockings by a flock of children, who make a great rush 
towards her feet, pull off her boots and stockings, which 
they shake, in order to find the money previously placed in 
them. 

The bride and bridegroom soon after open a round dance, 
and during its performance money is agam thrown over 
their heads. 

The bride is again led back to her corner, where she re- 
mains a mute and veiled image; sleepmg at night with that 
awful plate on her head, and guarded by her maiden friends, 



326 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA, 

who do not desert her until Wednesday evening, when the 
bridegroom is finally allowed to dine tete-a-tete with the 
bride. The only guests admitted that day to the family din- 
ner are the priest and his wife; the latter passes the night 
in the house, and is commissioned the next morning to carry 
the tidings to the bride's mother that her daughter has hap- 
pily entered upon the duties of married life. 

At noon a luncheon is given to the relatives and friends, 
who collect to offer their congratulations. 

On Saturday, the ceremony of kissing the hands of her 
mother and father-in-law is again gone through; the bridal 
veil on this occasion is replaced by one of crimson crepe, 
which she wears until her father-in-law gives her a present, 
and allows her to remove it. Brides are not allowed to utter 
a word in the presence of a near relative of their husbands, 
until permitted to do so by his father. This permission, 
however, is sometimes not easily obtained, and years may 
elapse before it is given. Many a young wife has gone to 
her grave without having spoken to her father and mother- 
in-law. 

Though the Armenians are sensual and despotic, they gen- 
erally make good husbands, but the standard of morality is 
getting lax among the emancipated followers of the customs 
a la Granca, who, being entirely ignorant of the rules of true 
breeding, often abuse the freedom of European manners. 

AN ORIENTAL BARBER. 

In the warm climate of the Orient, a multitude of avoca- 
tions which, with us, are followed indoors, are performed in 



SrOh'Y OF TURKF.Y AND ARMENIA. 327 

the Open air. In the great bazars of Palestine, Syria and 
Asia Minor, a majority of the merchants have their wares ex- 
posed outdoors, and they, with possibly one or more assist- 
ants (whenever the establishment is of sufficient consequence 
to require more than a single attendant) ensconce themselves 
in some shady nook or recess, or beneath some dingy awn- 
ing, while the purchaser leisurely strolls along and examines 
their wares. Great stocks of valuable shawls, wrappings of 
silk and woven stufifs, cotton and linen, silverware and gold, 
antiques in brass, copper and other metals, swords and all 
kinds of weapons, are sold in the open air in many shops of 
Damascus, Aleppo, Beyrout, Smyrna, Jerusalem and even 
Constantinople. Workmen ply their trade on the sidewalk 
in little tents or booths, skilled artisans in precious metals 
as well as the humble maker of sandals. 

Not the least picturesque of these alfresco Oriental work- 
men is the barber, who may be frequently seen plying his 
calling in a picturesque fashion. In all Eastern countries 
the barber is a much respected social functionary. Yet 
shaving is by no means the comfortable luxury in the East 
that it is among the Western people. Our later civilization 
has introduced many luxurious accompaniments to the art 
tonsorial that are totally imknown in the East, where the 
same appliances are still employed that have been used for 
many centuries. An Oriental barber shop or booth is 
usually found on some street aside from the main thorough- 
fare. Here the white-robed and turbaned attendant waits 
upon his patron, seating him upon a chair or stool, not un- 
like a "tabourette," or diminutive table, such as is used in 



328 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Syrian and Turkish homes. Tying a large towel about the 
neck of the sitter, the barber is ready to begin. Usually an 
attendant holds a platter or water-dish while the operation is 
in progress. The upright position is not calculated to add 
to the comfort of the patron, but this is atoned for, to some 
extent, by the skill and deftness with which the razor is 
handled by the barber himself. 

Certain classes in the East shave the head or at least a por- 
tion of its surface, at regular intervals, and others the face 
alone, while still others approximate more closely to the 
European style of toilet. Shaving the head was customary 
among the Hebrews as an act of mourning, and was prob- 
ably performed much in the same manner as is now usual in 
those latitudes, the operator rubbing the scalp gently and 
comfortably with his fingers moistened with water for a con- 
siderable time, and afterward applying the razor and shaving 
from the crown downward. 

With few exceptions, the ancient nations attached a great 
value to the possession of a beard. In Egypt, however, it 
was the common practice to shave the hair of the face and 
head. Herodotus mentions it as a peculiarity that they per- 
mitted the hair and beard to grow as a sign of mourning. It 
is supposed that, during their captivity, the Israelites pre- 
served their beards. Assyrians, Amalekites, Canaanites and 
Arabians were all more or less bearded in early times. One 
of the very oldest traditions is that Adam was created with a 
beard. 

Modern Mohammedans no longer regard the beard as a 
sacred thing, as once did the followers of Islam. Sultan 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 331 

Selim, in the sixteenth century, shattered all traditions by 
shaving off his beard, and since those days the Moslem has 
become more and more latitudinarian in this respect, so that 
one today cannot tell, by the mere presence or absence of a 
beard, whether a man be Moslem or Christian. 



332 8T0BY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 



CHAPTER XII. 

OPINIONS OF DISTINGUISHED WRITERS. 

THE CRY OP ARMENIA. 

A Sermon by Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D. D. Text: II Kings 19:37, 
"They escaped into the land of Armenia." 

In Bible geography this is the first time that Armenia ap- 
pears, called then by the same name as now. Armenia is 
chiefly a table-land, 7000 feet above the level of the sea, and 
on one of its peaks Noah's ark landed, with its human family 
and fauna that were to fill the earth. That region was the 
birthplace of the rivers which fertilized the Garden of Eden 
when Adam and Eve lived there, their only roof the crystal 
skies, and their carpet the emerald of rich grass. Its inhab- 
itants, the ethnologists tell us, are a superior type of the 
Caucasian race. Their rehgion is founded on the Bible. 
Their Saviour is our Christ. Their crime is that they will not 
become followers of Mahomet, that Jupiter of sensuality. 
To drive them from the face of the earth is the ambition of all 
Mohammedans. To accompHsh this, murder is no crime, 
and wholesale massacre is a matter of enthusiastic approba- 
tion and governmental reward. The prayer sanctioned by 
highest Mohammedan authority, and recited every day 
throughout Turkey and Egypt, while styling all those not 
Mohammedans as infidels, is as follows: "O Lord of all crea- 



SrORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 333 

tures! O Allah! Destroy the infidels and polytheists, 
Thine enemies, the enemies of the religion ! O Allah ! Make 
their children orphans and defile their bodies; cause their 
feet to shp; give them and their families, their households 
and their women, their children, and their relatives by mar- 
riage, their brothers and their friends, their possessions and 
the race, their wealth and their lands as booty to the Mos- 
lems, O Lord of all creatures !" The life of an Armenian in 
the presence of those who make that prayer is of no more 
value than the life of a summer insect. The Sultan of Tur- 
key sits on a throne impersonating that brigandage and as- 
sassination. At this time all civilized nations are in horror 
at the attempts of that Mohammedan government to de- 
stroy all the Christians of Armenia. I hear somebody talk- 
ing as though some new thing were happening, and that the 
Turkish government had taken a new role of tragedy on the 
stage of nations. No, no! She is at the same old business. 
Overlooking her diabolism of other centuries, we come 
down to our century to find that in 1822 the Turkish govern- 
ment slew 50,000 anti-Moslems, and in 1850 she slew 10,000, 
and in i860 she slew 11,000, and in 1876 she slew 10,000. 
Anything short of the slaughter of thousands of human be- 
ings does not put enough red wine into her cup of abomina- 
tion to make it worth quaffing. Nor is this the only time 
she has promised reform. In the presence of the warships 
at the mouth of the Dardanelles, she has promised the civi- 
lized nations of the earth that she would stop her butcheries, 
and the international and hemispheric farce has been enacted 
of believing what she says, when all the past ought to per- 



334 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

suade us that she is only pausing in her atrocities to put 
nations off the track and then resume the work of death. In 
1820 Turkey, in treaty with Russia, promised to alleviate the 
condition of Christians, but the promise was broken. In 
1839 the then Sultan promised protection of life and property 
without reference to religion, and the promise was broken. 
In 1844, ^t the demand of an EngHsh minister plenipotenti- 
ary, the Sultan declared, after the public execution of an Ar- 
menian at Constantinople, that no such death penalty should 
again be inflicted, and the promise was broken. In 1850, at 
the demand of foreign nations, the Turkish government 
promised protection to Protestants, but to this day the Prot- 
estants at Stamboul are not allowed to build a church, al- 
though they have the funds ready, and the Greek Protestants, 
who have a church, are not permitted to worship in it. In 
1856, after the Crimean war, Turkey promised that no one 
should be hindered in the exercise of the religion he pro- 
fessed, and that promise has been broken. In 1878, at the 
memorable treaty of Berlin, Turkey promised religious lib- 
erty to all her subjects in every part of the Ottoman Empire, 
and the promise was broken. Not once in all the centuries 
has the Turkish government kept her promise of mercy. So 
far from any improvement, the condition of the Armenians 
has become worse and worse year by year, and all the prom- 
ises the Turkish government now makes are only a gaining 
of time by which she is making preparations for the complete 
extermination of Christianity from her borders. 

Why, after all the national and continental and hemi- 
spheric lying on the part of the Turkish government, do not 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 335 

the warships of Europe ride up as close as possible to the 
palaces of Constantinople and blow that accursed govern- 
ment to atoms? In the name of the Eternal God, let the 
nuisance of the ages be wiped ofif the face of the earth ! Down 
to the perdition from which it smoked up, sink Mohammed- 
anism! Between these outbreaks of massacre the Arme- 
nians sufifer in silence wrongs that are seldom, if ever, re- 
ported. They are taxed heavily for the mere privilege of 
living, and the tax is called "the humiliation tax." They are 
compelled to give three days' entertainment to any Moham- 
medan tramp who may be passing that way. They must 
pay blackmail to the assessor, lest he report the value of their 
property too highly. Their evidence in court is of no worth, 
and if fifty Armenians saw a wrong committed and one Mo- 
hammedan was present, the testimony of the one Moham- 
medan would be taken and the testimony of the fifty Arme- 
nians rejected; in other words, the sol-emn oath of a thousand 
Armenians would not be strong enough to overthrow the 
perjury of one Mohammedan. A professor was condemned 
to death for translating the English Book of Common 
Prayer into Turkish. Seventeen Armenians were sentenced 
to fifteeen years' imprisonment for rescuing a Christian 
bride from the bandits. This is the way the Turkish gov- 
ernment amuses itself in time of peace. These are the de- 
lights of Turkish civilization. But when the days of mas- 
sacre come, then deeds are done which may not be unveiled 
in any refined assemblage, and if one speaks of the horrors, 
he must do so in well-poised and cautious vocabulary. Hun- 
dreds of villages destroyed! Young men put in piles of 



336 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

brushwood, which are then saturated with kerosene and set 
on fire! Mothers, in the most solemn hour that ever comes 
in a woman's Hfe, hurled out and bayonetted ! Eyes gouged 
out, and dead and dying hurled into the same pit! The 
slaughter of Lucknow and Cawnpore, India, in 1857, eclipsed 
in ghastliness! The worst scenes of the French revolution 
in Paris made more tolerable in contrast! In many regions 
of Armenia the only undertakers are the jackals and hyenas. 
Many of the chiefs of the massacre were sent straight from 
Constantinople to do their work, and having returned, were 
decorated by the Sultan. To four of the worst murderers 
the Sultan sent silk banners, in delicate appreciation of their 
services. Look at this picture. It is a copy of a private let- 
ter from Armenia: "Rev. Grigos Hachadoovian, a minister 
of the gospel, whom I knew personally, was the pastor of the 
Second Congregational Church of Kharpoot, my native 
city. When the Turkish soldiers commenced shooting all 
over the city, he took his wife and children and went to the 
church; soon about sixty of his congregation joined him. 
Naturally good and earnest Christians, as they were, they 
lifted their voices up to heaven for help. While in prayer, 
the Turks rushed in and demanded of the minister to become 
a Mohammedan then and there, with his congregation. He 
refused promptly. The Turks removed the pulpit, made a 
butchering platform, cut ofif the head of the minister and 
actually cut him to pieces before his congregation: mind 
you, on the platform from which he had preached Christ ^or 
twenty years ! This horrible spectacle seems to have had no 
effect upon the devout Christian Armenians, as they all re- 




AiniEMAX I'EASAXT W(3MEN WEAVINCi Tl'KKISH CAKPETS. 
KT'RDISH BANDITS. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 339 

fused to denounce Christ and pray to Mahomet, and all were 
killed in the church to the last man, woman and child." What 
do you think of that picture, Christian people of America? 
That is the Mohammedanism some people w^ould hke to have 
introduced into our country. 

Five hundred Thousand Armenians put to death or dying 
of starvation! This moment, while I speak, all up and 
down Armenia sit many people, freezing in the ashes of their 
destroyed homes, bereft of most of their households, and 
awaiting the club of assassination to put them out of their 
misery. No wonder that the physicians of that region de- 
clared that among all the men and women that were down 
with wounds and sickness and under their care, not one 
w^anted to get well. Remember that nearly all the reports 
that have come to us of the Turkish outrages have been ma- 
nipulated and modified and softened by the Turks them- 
selves. The story is not half told, or a hundredth part told, 
or a thousandth part told. None but God and our suffering 
brothers and sisters in that far-off land know the whole 
story, and it will not be known until, in the coronation of 
heaven, Christ will lift to a special throne of glory these 
heroes and heroines, saying, "These are they who came out 
of great tribulation and had their robes washed and made 
white in the blood of the Lamb!" My Lord and my God! 
Thou didst on the cross suffer for them, but Thou surely, 
O Christ! wilt not forget how much they have suffered for 
Thee! I dare not deal in imprecation, but I never so much 
enjoyed the imprecatory Psalms of David as since I have 
heard how those Turks are treating the Armenians. The 



340 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

fact is, Turkey has got to be divided up among other nations. 
Of course, the European nations must take the chief part, 
but Turkey ought to be compelled to pay America for the 
American mission-buildings and American school-houses 
she has destroyed, and to support the wives and children of 
the Americans ruined by this wholesale butchery. When 
the English lion and the Russian bear put their paws on that 
Turkey, the American eagle ought to put in its bill. 

Who are these American and English and Scotch mission- 
aries who are being hounded among the mountains of Ar- 
menia by the Mohammedans? The noblest men and wo- 
men this side of heaven. Some of them men who took the 
highest honors at Yale and Princeton and Harvard and Ox- 
ford and Edinburgh. Some of them women, gentlest and 
most Christ-like, who, to save people they never saw, turned 
their backs on luxurious homes to spend their days in self- 
expatriation, saying good-by to father and mother, and 
afterward good-by to their own children, as circumstances 
compel them to send the little ones to England, Scotland or 
America. I have seen these foreign missionaries in their 
homes all around the world, and I stamp with indignation 
upon the literary blackguardism of foreign correspondents 
who have depreciated these heroes and heroines who are 
willing to live and die for Christ's sake. They will have tl'ie 
highest thrones in heaven, while their defamers will not get 
near enough to the shining gates to see the faintest glint of 
any one of the twelve pearls which make up the twelve gates. 
This defamation of missionaries is augmented by the disso- 
lute English, American and Scotch merchants who go to for- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 341 

eign cities, leaving their families behind them. Those disso- 
lute merchants in foreign cities lead a life of such gross im- 
morals that the pure households of the missionaries are a 
perpetual rebuke. Buzzards never did believe in doves, and 
if there is anything that nightshade hates it is the water lily. 
What the 550 American missionaries have suffered in the 
Ottoman Empire since 1820 I leave the archangel to an- 
nounce on the day of judgment. You will see it reasonable 
that I put so much emphasis on Americanism in the Otto- 
man Empire when I tell you that America, notwithstanding 
all the disadvantages named, has now over 27,000 students 
in day-schools in that empire, and 35,000 children in her 
Sabbath-schools, and that America has expended in the 
Turkish Empire for its betterment over $10,000,000. Has 
not America a right to be heard? Aye! It will be heard! 
I am glad that great indignation meetings are being held all 
over this country. That poor, weak, cowardly Sultan, whom 
I saw a few years ago ride to his mosque for worship, guarded 
by 7000 armed men, many of them mounted on prancing 
chargers, will hear of these sympathetic meetings for the Ar- 
menians, if not through American reporters, then through 
some of his 360 wives. What to do with him? There 
ought to be some St. Helena to which he could be exiled, 
while the nations of Europe appoint a ruler of their own to 
clean out and take possession of the palaces of Constanti- 
nople. Tonight this august assemblage in the capital of the 
United States, in the name of the God of Nations, indicts the 
Turkish government for the wholesale assassination in Ar- 



3i2 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

menia, and invokes the interference of Almighty God and 
the protest of Eastern and Western hemispheres. 

The Turkish government has in every possible way hin- 
dered x\rmenian relief. Now, where is that angel of mercy, 
Clara Barton, who appeared on the battlefields of Freder- 
icksburg, Antietam, Falmouth, and Cedar Mountain, and 
under the blaze of French and German guns at Metz and 
Paris and in Johnstown floods, and Charleston earthquake, 
and jMichigan fires, and Russian famine? It was com- 
paratively of little importance that the German emperor 
decorated her with the Iron Cross, for God hath decorated 
lier in the sight of all nations with a glory that neither time 
ncr eternity can dim. Born in a Massachusetts village, she 
came in her girlhood to this city to serve our government in 
the Patent Office, but afterwards went forth from the doors 
of that Patent OfIice,with a divine patent signed and sealed by 
God Himself, to heal all the wounds she could touch, and 
make the horrors of the flood, and fire, and plague, and hos- 
pital fly her presence. God bless Clara Barton! Just as I 
expected, she lifts the banner of the Red Cross. Turkey 
and all nations are pledged to respect and defend that Red 
Cross, although that color of cross does not, in the opinion 
of many, stand for Christianity. In my opinion, it does stand 
for Christianity, for was not the cross under which most of 
us worship red with the blood of the Son of God, red with 
r.ic best blood that was ever shed, red with the blood 
poured out for the ransom of the world? Then lead 
on, O Red Cross! And let Clara Barton carry it! The 
Turkish government is bound to protect her, and the chariots 



STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 343 

of God are twenty thousand, and their charioteers are angels 
of deliverance, and they would all ride down at once to roll 
over and trample under the hoofs of their white horses any of 
her assailants. May the $500,000 she seeks be laid at her 
feet! Then may the ships that carry her across Atlantic and 
Mediterranean seas be guided safely by him who trod into 
sapphire pavement bestormed Galilee! Upon soil incar- 
nadined with martyrdom, let the Red Cross be planted, until 
every demolished village shall be rebuilded, and every pang 
of hunger be fed, and every wound of cruelty be healed, and 
Armenia stand with as much liberty to serve God in its own 
way as in this the best land of all the earth, we, the descend- 
ants of the Puritans and Hollanders, and Huguenots, are 
free to worship the Christ who came to set all nations free ! 

It has been said that if we go over there to interfere on 
another continent, that will imply the right for other nations 
to interfere with affairs on this continent, and so the Monroe 
doctrine be jeopardized. Xo, no! President Cleveland 
expressed the sentiment of every intelligent and patriotic 
American when he thundered from the White House a warn- 
ing to all nations, that there is not one acre or one inch more 
of ground on this continent for any transatlantic government 
to occupy. And by that doctrine we stand now and shall 
forever stand. But there is a doctrine as much higher than 
the ^lonroe doctrine as the heavens are higher than the 
earth, and that is the doctrine of humanitarianism and sym- 
pathy and Christian helpfulness which one cold December 
midnight, with loud and multitudinous chant, aw^akened the 
shepherds. Wherever there is a wound it is our duty, 



344 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

whether as individuals or as nations, to balsam it. Wherever 
there is a knife of assassination lifted it is our duty to ward 
off the blade. Wherever men are persecuted for their re- 
Hgion it is our duty to break that arm of power, whether it 
be thrust forth from a Protestant church or a Catholic ca- 
thedral or a Jew^ish synagogue or a mosque of Islam. We 
all recognize the right on a small scale. If going down the 
road, we find a rufhan maltreating a child, or a human brute 
insulting a w^oman, we take a hand in the contest if we are 
not cowards, and though we be slight in personal presence, 
because of our indignation we come to weigh about twenty 
tons, and the harder we punish the villain the louder our con- 
science applauds us. In such case we do not keep our 
hands in our pockets, arguing that if we interfere with the 
brute the brute might think he would have a right to inter- 
fere with us, and so jeopardize the Monroe doctrine. The 
fact is, that that persecution of the Armenians by the Turks 
must be stopped, or God Almighty will curse all Christen- 
dom for its damnable indifference and apathy. But the 
trumpet of resurrection is about to sound for Armenia. Did 
I say in opening that on one of the peaks of Armenia, this 
very Armenia of which we speak, in Noah's time the ark 
landed, according to the myth, as some think, but according 
to God's ''say-so,'' as I know, and that it was after a long 
storm of forty days and forty nights, called the Deluge, and 
that afterwards a dove went forth from that ark and returned 
with an olive leaf in her beak? Even so now, there is another 
ark being launched, but this one goes sailing, not over a 
deluge of water, but a deluge of blood — the ark of American 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 347 

sympathy — and that ark, landing on Ararat, from its window 
shall fly the dove of kindness and peace, to find the olive 
leaf of returning prosperity, while all the mountains of 
Moslem prejudice, oppression and cruelty shall stand fifteen 
cubits under. Meanwhile we would like to gather all the 
dying groans of all the 500,000 victims of Mohammedan 
oppression, and intone them into one prayer that would move 
the earth and the heavens, hundreds of millions of Christian 
voices, American and European, crying out, "O God Most 
High ! Spare Thy children. With mandate from the throne 
hurl back upon their haunches the horses of the Kurdish 
cavalry. Stop the rivers of blood. With the earthquake of 
Thy wTath shake the foundations of the palaces of the Sul- 
tan. Move all the nations of Europe to command cessation 
of cruelty; if need be, let the warships of civilized nations 
boom their indignation. Let the Crescent go down before 
the Cross, and the Mighty One who hath on His vesture and 
on His thigh a name written 'King of Kings and Lord of 
Lords,' go forth, conquering and to conquer. Thine, O 
Lord, is the kingdom! Hallelujah! Amen!" 

THE BLOT ON THE CENTURY. 

By Francis B. Clark, D. D., President of the United Society of Christian 

Endeavor. 

The Armenian problem is by no means a new one, though 
it has reached its acute stages only within the last three years. 
Had there been no atrocities in Sivas and Harpoot, no mas- 
sacres in Marash and Cesarea, there would still be abundant 



348 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

reason for the indignant remonstrance of the civilized world, 
and for the interference of the great Powers in behalf of long- 
suffering Armenia. 

The rule of the Turk is hopelessly and remedilessly bad 
wherever that rule extends. The mildew and bhght of his 
occupation are found wherever the Star and Crescent wave. 
Just as truly as in the olden days, destruction and desolation 
were left in the wake of the victorious "horse-tails" of the 
triumphant Sultans, so now desolation and destruction are 
left in the retreating wake of the decadent and conquered 
Sultan. 

The history of six hundred years teaches us that it is of 
little use to talk about mending the reign of the Turk. There 
is nothing left but to end it. To mend it is out of the ques- 
tion; to end it is the only hope for Moslem and Christian 
alike who dwell within the Sultan's domains. 

We hear less about the tribulations of the Syrians and the 
Arabs of Palestine and other parts of the Levant than of the 
dreadful fate of the Armenians; but their troubles are none 
the less real, even if they do not so much excite the horror of 
the civilized world. 

Throughout a large section of the fairest part of the 
earth's surface, enterprise and intellectual progress, to say 
nothing of religious freedom, have long been dead. In the 
fair lands which border on the Mediterranean, lands which 
should be the garden spots of the earth, there is, and has 
been for many generations, poverty, wretchedness and 
squalor, which can hardly be credited in lands that are better 
governed. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 349 

Naturally the character of the people has deteriorated, and 
a hopeless fatalism or cunning mendacity, which seeks to 
win by deceit what it cannot gain by fairer methods, have be- 
come characteristic of the people. In fact, whether we con- 
sider the character of the people, the soil on which they live, 
the houses that cover them, or the institutions by which they 
are misgoverned, we find that the trail of the Turk is over 
them all. 

The traveler through Palestine cannot but be impressed by 
these facts; still more he who takes the overland journey 
across Asia Minor, where the Turk has had more full and 
undisputed sway. 

He will find himself in a land of great natural resources 
and large possibilities; a land with a fertile soil, and exhaust- 
less mines of precious metals, a land of rushing rivers and 
bold and rugged mountain scenery. When the Turk is de- 
posed and some decent government establishes its sway in 
Asia Minor, we shall read of Cook's Parties and Gaze's Tour- 
ists in the magnificent land of the Taurus. The Cilician 
gates will be open to the traveler, though for many years 
they have been practically closed by the inefficient shiftless- 
ness of a government which taxes the people to death for 
roads v/hich are never built, and bridges which are never 
constructed. 

Then the mines which, with their hidden treasures, have 
been sealed to all enterprise, will pour their wealth into the 
world's coffers. But now the Turk reasons, with character- 
istic phlegm, that so long as the mines are undisturbed the 
wealth of the nation is intact, and he does not propose to 



350 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA, 

allow outer barbarians to come in and open up mines and 
cart off his treasures of gold and silver. This is carrying 
the stocking-leg theory of finance to its absurdest hmits. To 
be sure, the traveler finds one feeble, struggling little railway 
on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey from Mersin to 
Adana, a distance of about forty miles. It was built by for- 
eign capital, however, and is managed by foreign enterprise, 
and has been hampered and taxed almost off the face of the 
earth by the ruling Turk. 

There is also a passable wagon road for Turkey for a few 
miles from Tarsus toward the CiHcian gates; but this pass- 
able road soon runs mto an almost impassable cart-track, 
the cart-track degenerates into a camel-path, and though the 
camel-path does not exactly "run up a tree," it seems to lose 
itself when it gets to the most inaccessible portions of the 
Taurus mountams, or at least is fit only for the sure-footed 
"ships of the desert" that contmually traverse it with their 
swaying loads and their tinkling bells. The only bridges m 
many parts of the country are those built by the Romans 
1800 years ago, so substantially and so scientifically that the 
war of the elements and the neglect of the Turk for twenty 
centuries has not been able to destroy them. 

It should be said that this road, which starts from Tarsus^ 
comes to light here and there during the hundreds of miles 
which lie between the birthplace of St. Paul and the ancient 
city of Angora, in old Galatia ; but it as often gets lost again 
or is obstructed and rendered impassable by falling trees 
and descending boulders, which no one has energy enough 
to move out of the way. And yet this road is the excuse for 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 351 

wringing tens of thousands of pounds every year out of the 
poverty-stricken inhabitants. To be sure, the money is not 
expended upon the road, and every year it is falling into a 
more utterly impassable condition; but, no matter, it fur- 
nishes an excuse for yearly taxes and for more misgovern- 
ment. 

There are no hotels m our sense of the word, or inns, even, 
of the humblest character, along this highway, which is the 
only artery between Constantinople and the Mediterranean 
ports; but there are stone huts called khans, in which men 
and bullocks and camels and asses may rest their wearied 
bodies in delightful promiscuity, while all are impartially at- 
tacked by other occupants that are not recorded in the cen- 
sus, and are not registered upon the books even of a Turkish 
khan. 

For much of the distance along this highway every tree 
and shrub and root has been plucked up to furnish a little 
scanty fuel for the shivering inhabitants. The broad 
stretches of table-land, naturally fertile, are so poorly tilled 
with the rude implements of the past, that only a scanty pop- 
ulation can be maintained, and these at ^'a poor dying rate," 
where millions might thrive under a good government. 

The villages m the interior are for the most part built of 
sun-dried mud, though sometimes of stone, and are filthy 
and squalid beyond all description — dead sheep and donkeys 
and camels lying in the streets. I have myself counted in 
one street of a little village more than a dozen dead animals, 
which the inhabitants were too unenterprising to bury or to 
haul away. 



352 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Very naturally, all enterprise and energy are killed out of 
such a people by hundreds of years of misrule and oppres- 
sion. Why should a man strive to get on in the world, when 
he knows that he will only make himself by his enterprise the 
special prey of the oppressor? Why should he plant an 
orchard of superior fruit, when he knows that the tax-gath- 
erer will get the best of it? Why should he try to improve 
his worldly condition in any way, when he knows that unless 
he can cover up his wealth and simulate poverty, he will but 
become the target for every corrupt and unscrupulous offi- 
cial? 

The land of Turkey has been picked bare; even the pin 
feathers of enterprise, if we may be excused the expression, 
have been singed ofif by a rapacious officiaHsm during many 
generations. 

And now these centuries of atrocious misrule and almost 
inconceivable corruption are crowned by the murder and the 
pillage and the wholesale massacres, which have caused the 
olood of civilization to run cold, outrages that will mark the 
years of 1895-96 with such blots as no other years have 
known for many centuries. Yet the civilized world allows 
the great Powers, each disarmed against the Turk by their 
mutual jealousies, to look on supinely while the butchery in 
Armenia never ceases. Still the Queen's speech, read at 
the opening of Parliament in the year 1896, talks gingerly 
about the Sultan's promises to institute reforms, while very 
likely, at the very moment when her speech was read, the 
Sultanas hirelings were murdering Christians, pillaging their 
property and firing their villages ! 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 355 

What will our grandchildren think of the boasted civiUza- 
tion of the nineteenth centur}^? How will the people of the 
happier age which is to come look back with shuddering 
horror, not only upon the deeds enacted in Turkey, but 
with scarcely less horror, upon the Christian nations, who 
by reason of their insane jealousy of one another, permitted 
those atrocities, which they might have prevented. 

Alas, that this century should be known not only as the 
century of invention and discovery, of the railway and the 
steamship, and the telegraph and the telephone, the century 
of rehgious progress and missionary enterprise, the century 
of the Sunday-school, and the young people's movements, 
but also the century stained with the deepest dye of Christian 
blood and of which the great Christian Powers can never 
wash their hands! 

God grant that before the record of the century is closed, 
before the Armenians are utterly exterminated, and no faith- 
ful Christians in Asia Minor are left to rescue, Europe and 
America may awake to their responsibilities and tardily save 
themselves from the reproachful scorn of future generations. 

THE TYRANT TURK AND THE CRAVEN STATESMEN. 

By Frances E. Willard, President of the Woman's Christian Temperance 

Union. 

An ancient nation is being slowly slaughtered at the foot 
of Mt. Ararat, 50,000 victims stretched out under God's sky 
in the slow circle of a year ; women, pure, devout and comely, 
suffering two deaths — a living and a dying death ; little chil- 



356 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

dren pois-ed on the bayonets of Moslem soldiers, villages 
burned and starvation the common lot. 

On the other hand, Christian Europe, with 7,000,000 sol- 
diers, who take their rations and their sacrament regularly; 
statesmen, who kneel on velvet cushions in beautiful cathe- 
drals, and pray, "We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord;" 
diplomatists who can "shape the whisper of a throne" and 
shade the meaning of an ultimatum; but neither statesman, 
diplomat nor soldier has wit, wisdom or will to save a single 
life, shelter a single tortured babe, or supply a single loaf of 
bread to the starving Christians on the Armenian hillsides; 
"vested interests" are against it, "the balance of power" does 
not permit it, the will of the Sultan is the only will in the 
Empire of Turkey, and all the wills of all the Christian na- 
tions cannot move it one hair. 

The Turk is a savage, while the statesmen are — over-civi- 
lized ; he is a tyrant, while they are — craven cowards. 

Meanwhile a star moves towards the East; it caught its 
light from the Star of Bethlehem. One woman, well nigh 
seventy years of age, takes her Hfe in her hands and goes for- 
ward to the rescue ; she goes to bind up wounds, to give out 
bread, to light the fires on blackened hearthstones, to put 
hope into broken hearts. She is a greater power today for 
God and brotherhood than all the statesmen, diplomatists 
and soldiers. The world's eyes follow her with love; they 
cannot see her plainly for tears. 

Did our Heavenly Father overrule the wickedness of 
leaders to put before humanity an object lesson, on the 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 357 

broadest scale, of the futility of force and the omnipotence of 
love? 

WHAT I WOULD DO. 
By Senator Frye, of Maine. 

At the last session of the last Congress two missionaries 
appeared here from Armenia, both of whom I knew person- 
ally, one of whom was formerly a resident of my own city, 
and stated the grievances, the troubles, the massacres, their 
fears. They were asked what was the remedy, and they said 
to the committee that, in their judgment, if a consulate could 
be established at Erzeroum and another at Harpoot and 
consuls appointed, then there would be no trouble in that 
great interior, because the eye of America would then be 
upon it. In less than a week after that the Committee on 
Foreign Relations reported a bill establishing two consu- 
lates, one at Erzeroum and the other at Harpoot, and it be- 
came a law. The President of the United States appointed 
the consuls. 

Surely, the committee and Congress did everything then 
as expeditiously as anybody could ask, and did exactly what 
these missionaries desired should be done. Turkey refused 
exequaturs to those two consuls. I do not know what the 
executive department has done as to that refusal. I do not 
know what the executive department can do as to it; but it 
seems to me that some pressure ought to be brought some- 
how, that when there can be no objection to the persons of 
the consuls appointed exequaturs shall be granted. 



358 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Now, consider this incident. If that consul had been re- 
ceived by Turke}^ had gone to Harpoot, a consulate build- 
ing had been provided for, and an American flag raised, more 
than 20,000 lives would have been saved. One of the most 
terrible massacres perpetrated in Turkey anywhere took 
place at that point. 

The good people of the United States have planted in 
Turkey over $6,000,000 for a single purpose, to improve and 
better the condition of the people of that country. They 
have erected as fine colleges as there are in the world. They 
have been maintained by American money. They have edu- 
cated thousands of Turks, or Armenians, who are subject to 
Turkey. It has been a work of wonderful beneficence, a 
work which has had marvelous success, and yet it is stopped 
absolutely today. That American capital now is held up; 
it cannot do an ounce of work. At Harpoot the American 
colleges were burned down, and the Americans themselves 
were compelled to flee for their lives. 

I do not know how far the United States of America can 
interfere in Turkey. I am in favor of these resolutions as an 
expression of our opinion upon the awful tragedies there; 
but if I had had my way, after the powers of Europe have 
waited now a solid year looking each other in the face with 
suspicious eyes and neither one daring to make a move lest 
the other shall receive a benefit — I say if I had had my way, 
I would have Congress memoralize Russia and say to her: 
"Take Armenia into your possession. Protect the lives of 
these Christians there. And the United States of America 



^TORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 359 

will Stand behind you with all of its power." That is the me- 
morial and resolution I w^ould have passed. 

American citizens are suffering there. I care not what 
our Minister reports to the State Department. I know from 
better opportunity to learn it than Minister Terrell has or 
can have; that is, from the headquarters of the foreign mis- 
sions of the United States of America, where information is 
received by every mail, and where the information is abso- 
lutely accurate, but where the informants dare not have their 
names known because their lives would immediately pay the 
penalty. 

Now, so far as American citizens are concerned, I would 
protect them there at any cost. We never agreed that the 
Dardanelles should be closed to us. There cannot be found 
a line in the policy of the United States of America which 
ever permitted any great navigable water to be closed to our 
ships; not one. On the contrary, we have been ready to go 
to war at any time to keep navigable waters open to our 
ships. We have given no assent to the agreement of the 
concerting nations over there that the Dardanelles shall be 
closed. If it was necessary to protect our American citizens- 
and their property, I would order United States ships of war, 
in spite of foreign agreements, to sail up the Dardanelles and 
plant themselves before Constantinople, and then demand 
that American citizens should have the protection they are 
entitled to. 

I think one of the grandest things in the history of Great 
Britain, and one thing for which I admire her, is that she 
does protect her citizens everywhere and anywhere, under 



aOO STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

all circumstances. Her mighty power is put forth for their 
reHef and protection, and it is admirable. I do not wonder 
that a British citizen loves his country. Why, that little inci- 
dent which all of you are familiar with is a marvelous illus- 
tration of that. The King of Abyssinia took a British citi- 
zen of the name of Campbell, about twenty years ago, car- 
ried him up into the fortress of Magdala, on the heights of a 
lofty mountain, and put him into a dungeon without cause. 
It took six months for Great Britain to find that out, and 
then she dem^anded his immediate release. King Theodore 
refused to release him. In less than ten days after the re- 
fusal was received 3000 British soldiers and 5000 sepoys 
were on board ships of war sailing for the coast. When they 
arrived, they were disembarked, were marched 700 miles 
over swamp and morass under a burning sun, then up the 
mountain to the very heights, in front of the frowning dun- 
geon, and then they gave battle. They battered down the 
iron gates, the stone walls. King Theodore had killed him- 
self with his own pistol. Then they reached down into the 
dungeon, with that English hand, lifted out from it that one 
British citizen, and carried him down the mountain heights, 
across the same swamps and morass, landed him on the 
white- winged ships, and sped him away to his home in 
safety. That cost Great Britain $25,000,000 and made Gen- 
eral Napier Lord Napier of Magdala. 

That was a great thing for a great country to do. A coun- 
try that has an eye that can see away across an ocean, away 
across the many miles of land up into the mountain heights, 
down into the darksome dungeon one, just one, of her 38,- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 363 

000,000 people, and then has an arm strong enough and long 
enough to reach across the same ocean, across the same 
swamps and marshes, up the same mountain heights, down 
into the same dungeon, and pluck him out and carry him 
home to his own country a free man — in God's name, who 
will not die for a country that will do that? 

Our country will do it, and our country ought to do it. 
All that I ask of this grand republic of ours is that it shall 
model itself after Great Britain, if it pleases, in this one thing, 
that the life of an American citizen shall be protected 
wherever he may be, whether in Great Britain or in Turkey, 
and in no other thing whatsoever. 



364 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE ARMENIAN OUTRAGES. 

By United States Senator Shelby M. Cullom, of Illinois. 

Mr. Collum reported on January 24, 1896, the following 
resolutions to the Senate, and also made a speech in favor 
of their adoption. This speech, with some changes, which 
he has kindly sent, is as follows: 

Whereas the supplementary treaty of Berlin, July 13, 
1878, between the Ottoman Empire and Great Britain, Ger- 
many, Austria, France, Italy and Russia, contains the fol- 
lowing provisions: 

"LXI. The Sublime Porte undertakes to carry out without 
further delay the ameliorations and reforms demanded by 
local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the Arme- 
nians, and to guarantee their security against the Circassians 
and Kurds. 

*Tt will periodically make known these steps taken to this 
effect to the powers, and will superintend their application. 

"LXI I. The Sublime Porte, having expressed the wish to 
maintain the principle of religious liberty, to give it the wid- 
est scope, the contracting parties take note of this sponta- 
neous declaration. 

"In no part of the Ottoman Empire shall difference of re- 
ligion be alleged against an individual as a ground for exclu- 
sion or incapacity as regards the discharge of civil and politi- 
cal rights, admission to the public service, functions, and 
honors, and the exercise of the different professions and 
industries. 



ISTORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 365 

"All persons shall be admitted, without distinction of re- 
ligion, to give evidence before the tribunals. 

"Liberty and the outward exercise of all forms of worship 
are assured to all, and no hindrance shall be offered either 
to the hierarchial organization of the various communions 
or to their relations with their spiritual chiefs. 

"The right of official protection by the diplomatic and 
consular agents of the powers in Turkey is recognized both 
as regards the above-mentioned persons and their religious, 
charitable, and other establishments in the holy places;" and 

Whereas the extent and object of the above-cited provis- 
ions of said treaty are to place the Christian subjects of the 
Porte under the protection of the other signatories thereto, 
and to secure to such Christian subjects full liberty of relig- 
ious worship and belief, the equal benefit of the laws, and all 
the privileges and immunities belonging to any subjects of 
the Turkish Empire; and 

Whereas by said treaty the Christian powers parties there- 
to having established, under the consent of Turkey, their 
right to accomplish and secure the above-recited objects; 
and 

W^hereas the American people, in common with all Chris- 
tian people everywhere, have beheld with horror the recent 
appalling outrages and massacres of which the Christian 
population of Turkey have been made the victims : 

Resolved by the Senate of the United States (the House of 
Representatives concurring). That it is an imperative duty, 
in the interest of humanity, to express the earnest hope that 
the European concert brought about by the treaty referred 
to may speedily be given its just effect in such decisive meas- 
ures as shall stay the hand of fanaticism and lawless violence, 
and as shall secure to the unoffending Christians of the 
Turkish Empire all the rights belonging to them both as 
men and Christians and as beneficiaries of the explicit pro- 
visions of the treaty above recited. 

Resolved, That the President be requested to communi- 
cate these resolutions to the governments of Great Britain, 
Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Russia. 

Resolved further, That the Senate of the United States, 
the House of Representatives concurring, will support the 



366 8T0RY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA, 

President in the most vigorous action he may take for the 
protection and security of American citizens in Turkey, and 
to obtain redress for injuries committed upon the persons or 
property of such citizens. 

I am astounded and appalled at the brief accounts which I 
have had of the awful carnival of havoc, destruction and 
blood which has prevailed for a time in a country with which 
the United States maintains amicable relations. The con- 
current and accumulated testimony of hundreds and thous- 
ands of intelligent, humane, honest and courageous Chris- 
tians and Jews alike, Catholics and Protestants, Europeans 
and Americans, makes it absolutely certain as a dreadful 
truth that a massacre of innocence unparalleled for ages has 
been perpetrated in the Armenian provinces of Turkey. 
How can we believe that in 1894 and 1895, along the very 
borders of the land where scriptural history was made, and 
where the patriarchs of old fed their flocks, almost in sight of 
Hermon and Lebanon, and only a short journey from Beth- 
lehem, the most gigantic and brutal enormities have been 
committed upon a wholly unoffending people? 

We believe, without questioning, those words which have 
long been part of our religion, that "of one blood God made 
all the nations of the earth," but I confess that my faith is 
somewhat shattered in the accepted belief wlien I see the 
soldiers of an organized and recognized government, where 
there is no war and no enemy, killing, bayoneting and out- 
raging an unarmed and unoffending people — a Turkish 
army, under the pay of the Turkish government, composed 
of Circassians, Kurds and other barbarian soldiers, led 



8T0RT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 367 

through the rural and pastoral districts to devastate and de- 
stroy every living thing, to rob, to murder and flay alive, old 
and young, male and female. Destruction and rapine have 
been and now are the orders obeyed in the beautiful valleys 
and on the rugged hills of Armenia. There has been no 
war, no conflict between two contending powers, but a mer- 
ciless, pitiless tornado of bloody ruin. Over many square 
miles of territory, fire and the sword have swept the last ves- 
tige of Armenian human life. Through hundreds of Eastern 
villages, towns blessed with schools and colleges, with 
churches and missionaries, the demon of damnable and fan- 
atical hate has spread ruin, desolation and death. 

Has it come to this, that in the last days of the nineteenth 
century humanity itself is placed on trial? There is respon- 
sibility somewhere. There is to be retribution some time. 
Who is responsible? Not alone the poor, weak, slavish 
Sultan who sits at Constantinople, and has been forced to 
let Austria manage one province and to permit other nations 
to manage and govern other provinces. But there are what 
we know as the great powers of Europe, who have practi- 
cally determined that they will not allow Turkey to abdicate 
her autonomy until they can agree among themselves as to 
how her territory shall be apportioned between themselves. 
In my judgment, if Great Britain had consented that Russia 
should look after Armenia, as Austria has been permitted to 
control Bosnia for some years, this era of blood would not 
have stained the history of Europe. But the fear that Rus- 
sia might obtain some greater share of the "sick man's" es- 



368 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

tate than herself caused England to prevent the establishment 
of decent government in Armenia. 

But without going into the detail of the disputes between 
the countries of the European alliance, it is not wrong to say 
that upon those great powers rests the responsibility. They 
have for years practically "held up" the Turkish government 
and allowed her to say nothing and do nothing which they 
did not direct. They could have in six days put a perfect and 
absolute stop to the reign of death. They are responsible 
for the poHcy which has allowed this. The Turk is the pup- 
pet in their hands, and his soldiers and people are but the 
toys of their will and pleasure. 

I favor the adoption of the resolutions reported from the 
Committee on Foreign Relations in reference to the condi- 
tion of afifairs in the Turkish Empire. It is a matter of some 
embarrassment to this nation that it cannot, consistent with 
its declarations in the past, consent to send a fleet and an 
army to that country w^ith orders to use whatever power may 
be necessary to put a stop at once to the indiscriminate mur- 
der and slaughter of all classes of Armenians who have so far 
offered practically no resistance. 

As I have shown, a condition of affairs has for some time 
past existed in the Armenian portion of Turkey so appalling 
to the human heart that it is scarcely fit to be told. The 
Committee on Foreign Relations are not disposed to sit idly 
l)y and take no notice of such condition. They have, there- 
lore, reported certain resolutions, reciting in connection with 
them certain provisions of the treaty made between the Ot- 
toman Empire, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France, 




AJtMEXIAX VILLAGERS PURSUED BY KURDS. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 371 

Italy and Russia, which would seem almost sufficient to ex- 
cuse any other nation from having anything to say with ref- 
erence to the conditions existing in Turkey. 

The treaty of 1878, made between the powers as above 
indicated, substantially obhgates those powers to see to it 
that the Ottoman Empire shall in no way interfere with any 
class of its subjects on the ground of difference of rehgion. 
In that treaty the Ottoman Empire bound itself to make no 
distinctions for any reason whatever between one class of its 
subjects and another, and the combined powers in effect 
obligated themselves to give protection to the Armenian por- 
tion of that country, guaranteeing the same against any im- 
position by the Porte or any other authority in the Turkish 
Empire. 

The people of the United States are intensely excited over 
the condition of affairs reported to exist in that country. It 
cannot be questioned that such condition is well known to 
the Allied Powers, and yet, so far as we are informed, noth- 
ing has been done, except by diplomatic correspondence, to 
stop the further slaughter of innocent people or to care for 
the hundreds of thousands of Armenians who have been left 
homeless, helpless and starving. The purpose of the reso- 
lutions reported and under consideration is to plead with 
great earnestness to those Allied Powers who have under- 
taken to care for those people to put a stop to such brutality 
as is practiced upon them by the Circassians and Kurds ; and 
not entirely without the help or connivance of the Turkish 
soldiers themselves. 

The sixty-first article of the treaty referred to recites that 



872 ti^TORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

the Sublime Porte undertakes to carry out the amehorations 
and reforms demanded by the local requirements in the prov- 
inces inhabited by the Armenians, and to guarantee their se- 
curity against the Circassians and Kurds. 

The Sultan appears to have done nothing to protect the 
Armenians from those savage robbers and murderers, but it 
is believed, and I think correctly, by the Christian world, 
that the Sultan is knowingly allowing such slaughter to go 
on, the object being, it is said, to so reduce the Armenian 
population that they will no longer be of sufficient conse- 
quence to give him any concern. 

It is unnecessary for me to say that it is amazing to the 
people of this country, at least, to witness such a terrible 
slaughter of those innocent people, and at the same time wit- 
ness the apparent indifference manifested by the powers who 
agreed to see that they were protected. 

Before the treaty of Berlin was entered into by the great 
powers in 1878, Great Britain announced its own treaty of 
defense with the Porte, which, it is said, caused a great sen- 
sation among the Allied Powers. This treaty between Tur- 
key and England provides that England was to join His Im- 
perial IMajesty the Sultan in defending certain portions of 
his territory against any future attempt on the part of Russia 
to take possession of the same, and the Sultan promised Eng- 
land to introduce the necessary reforms, to be agreed upon 
between the two powers, in his government, and for the pro- 
tection of the Christian and other subjects of the Sultan. 
As a guarantee of good faith, the Sultan consented to the 
occupation by England of the island of Cyprus. That com- 



STORY OF TURKEY ANl' ARMENIA. 373 

pact was secretly signed at Constantinople on the 4th day of 
June, 1878, only a few days before the congress convened at 
Berlin to make the treaty of 1878. 

So that the English government, making greater preten- 
sions to the observance of the rights of the people than per- 
haps any other government in Europe, has an additional ob- 
ligation resting upon it to protect the Armenians in Turkey, 
and yet nothing has been done by it, notwithstanding this 
double obligation resting upon it, nor by any of the other 
powers looking to the enforcement of their treaty obliga- 
tions beyond a mere diplomatic correspondence between 
them and the Sultan. 

So it seemed to the Committee on Foreign Relations that 
we could not do less, that we could not say less, by way of a 
recital of the obligations of the Allied Powers to protect those 
people, and an appeal to them to carry out their pledges, than 
we have done by the resolution which is now under consid- 
eration. 

It may be proper for me to say that yesterday dispatches 
came from that country, saying that Turkey and Russia had 
made a treaty, by which Russia was to dominate Turkey and 
hold it as a vassal. I see, however, what I anticipated might 
be true, that the former dispatches have been substantially 
denied this morning. So the condition prevails that these 
several allied powers, having taken upon themselves practi- 
cally the special right, if such a right could be conferred, to 
protect the Armenians by name, consisting of over 2,000,000 
in European Turkey and more than 1,500,000 in Asiatic Tur- 
key, have, notwithstanding that obligation, permitted the 



374 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

indiscriminate slaughter which has been going on there for 
the last year, to say nothing of what occurred before that 
time, almost distancing any description of slaughter in the 
history of the world. I do not myself believe that there can 
be found in all the history of the world such a condition as 
has existed in that country for the last year and a half. 

The heart of all Christendom is stirred to its very depths 
as it witnesses the piteous pleas of the suffering Armenians 
beseeching the Christian world to give them protection. 

I said that nothing had been done by the combined powers 
looking to putting a stop to the murder of the Armenians 
since the treaty of 1878, aside from mere diplomatic protests. 
I ought to say that some eight months ago a scheme of re- 
form for the Armenian provinces was presented to the Sultan 
by the English, French and Russian governments, which 
was sanctioned October 17, 1895, by imperial irade for the 
provinces of Bitlis, Diarbekir, Seevas, Erzeroum, Van and 
Harpoot. These provinces cover the region where the ma- 
jority of the Armenians reside. Since the sanction by the 
Sultan of this proposed reform, wholesale slaughter and 
plunder have been perhaps more frequent than before. 

It is unnecessary for me to detail the history of what has 
been going on at any greater length ; but it would seem, from 
all the information that can be obtained, that there has been 
a determination on the part of the Sultan of Turkey to allow 
the Armenian population to be almost exterminated. It 
appears to be an assault upon the Armenians because of 
their religion. The religious leaders of those engaged in the 
indiscriminate slaughter which has been carried on incite 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. ;J75 

the people to action by crying from tiie housetops: "Woe to 
the Mussulman who does not kill at least one Christian and 
carry away some of their belongings, in the name of Ma- 
homet and His Imperial Majesty the Sultan." 

This country of ours may be said to be a neutral govern- 
ment, so far as interference with the internal affairs of any 
government in Europe is concerned. It has no disposition 
to interfere in the affairs of European governments, except. 
in the cause of humanity itself. And we now appeal most 
earnestly, in the name of humanity, to the governments which 
have contracted to protect those people, that they shall carry 
out their obligations. As to the right of this government to 
protect American citizens everywhere we ask no odds from 
any nation upon earth. 

In earlier days, the crusaders from Western Europe 
swarmed over this very country in their misguided efforts to 
establish religion through the agency of the sword. Of late 
it has seemed almost necessary to inaugurate another cru- 
sade in the interest of peace and humanity, that possibly a 
few people might be saved from a nation numbering about 
4,000,000 in all. They are greater in number than were the 
people of the American colonies in the days of the American 
Revolution. Is it necessary, in the economy of the civilized 
governments of Europe, that the blood of 4,000,000 people 
shall be spilled, that it shall water the soil of that vast area of 
country? 

The sympathy of America has always gone out to the op- 
pressed and misgoverned peoples of other countries. We 
extended our hands and gave of our means to Greece when 



376 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Turkey, years ago, strove to crush her to the earth. We 
sympathized with Hungary and did what we could to relieve 
the people there when they were held in bonds and diffi- 
culties. 

I cannot refrain from giving here the thrilling words of 
our great Webster, in an address referring to the affairs of 
Hungary. He said: 

"I see that the Emperor of Russia demands of Turkey that 
the noble Kossuth and his companions shall be given up to 
be dealt with at his pleasure, and I see that this demand is 
made in derision of the established laws of nations. 

"Gentlemen, there is something on earth greater than arbi- 
trary or despotic power. The lightning has its power, the 
whirlwind has its power, and the earthquake has its power; 
but there is something among men more capable of shaking- 
despotic power than the lightning, the whirlwind or the 
earthquake, and that is the excited and aroused indignation 
of the whole civilized world." 

I know of no condition which has existed in this w^orld for 
centuries which has called upon civilized nations and peoples 
for interference equaling the necessity for stopping the indis- 
criminate slaughter which has been going on in Turkish 
Armenia. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. m\} 



CHAPTER XI V^. 

THE CONDITION OF ARMENIA. 
By E. J. Dillon. 

[The "Condition of Armenia" was originally prepared by Mr. Dillon and 
published in the Contemporary Review, and no one is more competent to 
speak with authority on this subject. He was sent as special commissioner 
by the Daily Telegraph, London, to write articles for this paper on the con- 
dition of Armenia. He has a wide reputation as a careful and graphic 
writer, and his letters to the Telegraph, and this article in the Contem- 
porary Review, were accepted as authority by such men as Mr. Gladstone, 
Canon MacColl, Bishop of Chester, Bishop of Hereford and many other 
eminent men of England. 

The article attracted widespread attention, and possibly we would be 
unable to giA'e a better and more graphic account of the condition of Ar- 
menia than pictured by Mr. Dillon; and that he has not overdrawn the con- 
dition of affairs has been completely coiitirmed and established by the 
inquiries of the delegates appointed by the three Powers, England, France 
and Russia. The article has been abridged.— Ed.] 

Turkey's real sway in Armenia dates from the year 1847, 
when Osman Pasha gave the final coup de grace to the secu- 
lar power of the Kurdish Derebeks in the five southeastern 
provinces (Van, BitHs, Moush, Bayazed and Diarbekir). 
During that long spell of nearly fifty years, we can clearly dis- 
tinguish two periods: one of shameful misgovernment (1847- 
1891), and the other (1892- 1894) of frank extermination. 

This plain poHcy of extermination has been faithfully car- 
ried out and considerably extended from that day to this, and 
unless speedily arrested will undoubtedly lead to a final solu- 
tion of the Armenian problem. But a solution which will 



380 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

disgrace Christianity and laugh civihzation to scorn. The 
enlisted Kurds were left in their native places, exempted from 
service, supplied with arms, invested with the inviolability of 
ambassadors, and paid with the regularity characteristic of 
the Sublime Porte. 

The massacre of Sassoun itself is now proved to have been 
the deliberate deed of the representatives of the Sublime 
Porte, carefully planned and unflinchingly executed in spite 
of the squeamishness of Kurdish brigands and the Mul 
gleams of human nature that occasionally made themselves 
telt in the hearts even of Turkish soldiers. 

An eminent foreign statesman, who is commonly credited 
with Turcophile sentiments of uncompromising thorough- 
ness, lately remarked to me in private conversation that Turk- 
ish rule in Armenia might be aptly described as organized 
brigandage, legalized murder and meritorious immorality. 

The first step in carrying out the plan of extermination was 
the systematic impoverishment of the people. This is natural 
in a country whose officials are kept waiting eight or ten 
months for their salaries, and must then content themselves 
with but a fraction of what is due. 'T have not received a 
para''' for the past twenty weeks, and I cannot buy even 
clothes," exclaimed the official who was told ofif to ^'shadow" 
me day and night in Erzeroum. "Do they pay you your sal- 
ary regularly?" I inquired of the head of the telegraph office 
at Kutek. ''No, Effendi, not regularly," he replied; 'T have 
not had anything now for fully eight months. Oh yes, T 
have; a month's salary was given to me at Bairam.'' "How 

*A Turkish coin. Forty paras are equivalent, to twopence. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. ' 381 

do you manage to live, then?" "Poorly." "But you must 
have some money to go on with, or else you could not keep 
body and soul together?" "I have a little, of course, but not 
enough. Allah is good. You have now given me some 
money yourself." "Yes, but that is not for you ; it is for tele- 
grams, and belongs to the State." "Well, my shadow will 
have grown considerably less before the State beholds the 
gleam of it. I keep for myself all money paid in by the pub- 
lic. I take it as instalments of my salary. It does not 
amount to very miuch. But whatever it happens to be, 1 
pocket it.'- These men are, of course, petty officials, but their 
case is not essentially difTerent from that of the majority of 
their betters, and judges, officers, deputy-governors and 
valis, etc., are to the full as impecunious and incomparably 
more greedy. 

Tahsin Fasha, the late Governor-General of Bitlis, is a fair 
specimen of the high Turkish dignitary of the epoch of exter- 
mination. An avaricious skinflint, he was as cruel as Ugo- 
lino's enemy, Ruggieri, and as cold as Captain Maleger in 
Spenser's "Fairy Queen." He cultivated a habit of impris- 
oning scores of wealthy Armenians, without any imputed 
charge or show of pretext. Liberty was then offered them 
in return for exorbitant sums representing the greater part of 
their substance. Refusal to pay was followed by treatment 
compared with which the torture of the Jews in mediaeval 
England, or the agonies of the eunuchs of the princesses of 
Oude in modern India, were mild and salutary chastisements. 
Some men were kept standing up all day and night, forbidden 
to eat, drink or mov^e. If they lost strength and conscious- 



382 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

ness cold water or hot irons soon brought them round, and 
the work of coercion continued. Time and perseverance be- 
ing on the side of the Turks, the Armenians generally ended 
by sacrificing everything that mL.de life valuable for the sake 
of exemption from maddening pain. It was a case of sacri- 
ficing or being sacrificed, and that which seemed the lesser of 
the two evils was invariably chosen. 

In the Vilayet of Bitlis several hundred Armenians who 
possessed money, cattle or crops were arbitrarily imprisoned 
and set free on the payment of large bribes. Some of them, 
unable to produce the money at once, were kept in the 
noisome dungeons until they raised the sum demanded, or 
were released by death. About lOO Armenian prisoners 
died in the prison of Bitlis alone. The following petition, 
signed and sent to me — and if I mistake not, also to the for- 
eign delegates at ]\Ioush — from a well-known man, whose 
name and address I publish, will help to convey some idea of 
how the VaH of Bitlis governed his province and prospered 
the while: "We, who have served the Turkish government 
with absolute loyalty, are maltreated and oppressed, more 
particularly of late years, now by the government itself, now 
by Kurdish brigands. Thus last year (1894) I was suddenly 
arrested at my own house by Turkish police and gendarmes, 
w^ho escorted me to the prison of BitHs, where I was insulted 
and subjected to the most horrible tortures. Having been 
kept four months there, I was released on condition of paying 
£450, by way of ransom. No reason, no pretext, has been 
given for this treatment. On my return home, I found my 
house in disorder, my affairs ruined, my means gone. My 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 383 

first thought was to appeal to the Turkish government for 
redress, but I shrank from doing so, lest I should be con- 
demned again. Hearing that you have come to Armenia 
for the purpose of investigating the condition of the people, 
I venture to request you, in God's name, to take notice of the 
facts in my case. Signed, Boghos Darmanian, of the village 
of Iknakhodja of the Kaza of Manazkerd." 

In 1890, the village elder of Odandjor in Boolanyk, Abdal 
by name, was a wealthy man, as wealth goes in that part of the 
world. He possessed 50 bufifaloes, 80 oxen, 600 sheep, be- 
sides horses, etc. The women of his family wore golden or- 
naments in their hair and on their breast, and he paid £50 a 
year in taxes to the treasury. In 1894 he was a poverty- 
stricken peasant, familiar with misery and apprehensive of 
death from hunger. His village and those of the entire dis- 
trict had been plundered, and the inhabitants stripped, so to 
say, naked, the Turkish authorities smiling approval the 
while. 

In July, 1892, a captain of His Majesty's Hamidieh cavalry, 
Idris by name, an ornament of the Hassnanlee tribe, came 
with his brother to demand a contribution of fodder from the 
inhabitants of Hamsisheikh. They accosted two of the Ar- 
menian notables, Alo and Hatchadoor, and ordered them to 
provide the hay required. "We do not possess such a quan- 
tity in the whole village," they replied. ''Produce the hay 
without more ado, or I'll shoot you dead," exclaimed Idris. 
''But it does not exist, and we cannot create it." "Then die," 
said the gallant captain, and shot them dead on the spot. A 
formal complaint was lodged against Idris, and the Kaima- 



o84 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

kam, to his credit, arrested him and kept him in prison for 
four weeks, when the valiant Kurd, having paid the usual 
bribe, was set at liberty. About thirty similar murders were 
committed in the same district of Boolanyk during that sea- 
son, v/ith the same publicity and the same impunity. 

At first the Armenians were wont to complain when their 
relatives or friends were killed, in the hope that in some cases 
the arm of the law might be raised to punish the murderers 
and thus produce a deterrent effect upon others who might 
feel disposed to go and do likewise. But they were very 
soon weaned of this habit by methods the nature of which 
may be gathered from the following incident: In July, 1892, 
a Kurd named Ahmed Ogloo Ratal rode over to Govandook 
(district of Khnouss) and drove off four oxen belonging to 
an Armenian named Mookho. In 1892 the law forbidding 
Christians to carry arms was not yet strictly observed, and 
Mookho, possessing a revolver, and seeing that the Kurd 
was about to use his, fired. Both weapons went off at once 
and both men fell dead on the spot. What then happened 
was this: Nineteen Armenians of the village, none of whom 
had any knowledge of what had occurred, were arrested and 
put in jail and told that they would be released on payment of 
a heavy bribe. Ten paid it and were set free at once. The 
remainder, refusing, were kept in prison for a long time after- 
wards. None of the Kurds were molested. "Why should 
Mohammedans be punished for kilHng Armenians?" asked a 
Kurdish brigand who was also a Hamidieh officer, of me. 'Tt 
is unheard of.'' 

In August, 1893, tbe Djibranlee Kurds attacked the village 




A GROUP OF VILLAGERS, ARMI-:NTA. 



A HARVEST SCENE. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 387 

of Kaghkik, plundered it, and wounded a merchant named 
Oannes, who was engaged in business in his shop. Next 
day Oannes went to the deputy-governor (Kaimakam) in 
Khnoussaberd, and lodged a complaint, whereupon the 
Kaimakam put him in prison for "lying.'' The sufferings 
inflicted upon him in that hotbed of typhoid fever exceed be- 
lief — but that is another story. After eight days his neigh- 
bors brought a Kurd before the Kaimakam who bore out 
their evidence that Oannes had been really wounded in the 
manner described, and that he was not lying. Then, and 
then only, the authorities allowed the people to pay a bribe of 
±io for the release of the wounded man. 

There is no redress whatever for a Christian who has suf- 
fered in property, Hmb, or life at the hands of Moham- 
medans ; not because the law officers are careless or lethargic, 
but because they are specially retained on the other side. And 
the proof of this, if any proof were needed, is that the com- 
plainants themselves are speedily punished for lodging an 
information against their persecutors. But whenever a Kurd 
or a Turk is the victim of a "crime,'' or even an accident, the 
energy of the government offtcials knows no bounds. In the 
spring of last year, when the snows were thawing and the 
waters rose high in the rivers and streams, some needy Kurds 
were moving along the bank of the river, hard by Hussnakar. 
They were wretched beggars, asking alms, and battling with 
fate. In an attempt to ford the river they were carried away 
and drowned. Forthwith the villagers were accused of hav- 
ing miurdered them, and four Armenian notables were ar- 
rested and imprisoned in Hassankaleh on this trumpery 



388 STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 

charge, the real object of which was not disguised. After 
the lapse of seven or eight months the villagers were told that 
on payment of a bribe of £75 the prisoners would be dis- 
charged. The money had to be scraped together and paid 
to the authorities, whereupon the men were released. I saw 
two of them, Atam and Dono, myself. 

To give a fair instance of the different rates of taxation for 
Christians and Mohammedans in towns, it will sufhce to point 
out that in Erzeroum, where there are 8000 Mohammedan 
houses, the Moslems pay only 395,000 piastres, whereas the 
Christians, whose houses number but 2000, pay 430,000 
piastres. 

In the country districts everything without exception is 
highly taxed by the government, and the heaviest burden of 
this legal exaction is light when compared with the extortion 
practiced by its agents, the Zaptiehs. A family, for instance, 
is supposed to contribute, say, £5, and fulfils its obligation. 
The Zaptiehs, however, ask for £3 or £4 more for themselves, 
and are met with a rash refusal. Negotiations, interlarded 
with violent and abusive language, ensue, and £1 is accepted. 
But the Zaptieh's blood is up. In a week they return and de- 
mand the same taxes over again. The Armenians wax 
angry, protest, and present their receipt; whereat the Zap- 
tiehs laughingly explain that the document in question is no 
receipt but a few verses from a Turkish book. The villagers 
plead poverty and implore mercy. Greed, not compassion, 
moves the Zaptiehs to compromise the matter for £3 more, 
but the money is not forthcoming. Then they demand the 
surrender of the young women and girls of the family to glut 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 389 

their brutal appetites, and refusal is punished with a series of 
tortures over which decency and humanity throw a veil of 
silence. Rape, and every kind of brutal outrage conceivable 
to the diseased mind of Oriental profligates, and incredible to 
the average European inteUigence, varied perhaps with mur- 
der or arson, wind up the incident. 

I have seen and spoken with victims of these representaives 
of the Sublime Porte ; I have inspected their wounds, ques- 
tioned their families, interrogated their priests, their perse- 
cutors and their gaolers (some of them being incarcerated 
for complaining), and I unhesitatingly affirm not merely that 
these horrors are real facts, but that they are frequent occur- 
rences. The following is the translation of an authentic doc- 
ument in my possession, signed and sealed by the inhabitants 
of Melikan (Kaza of Keghi), addressed as recently as March 
26 of the present year to his Beatitude, the learned and saintly 
Metropolitan Archbishop of Erzeroum, a dignitary who en- 
joys the respect and esteem of friends and foes: 

For a long time past the four or five Zaptiehs charged with 
the collection of the imperial taxes have chosen our village 
for their headquarters, and compel the inhabitants of the out- 
lying country to come hither and pay their contributions. 
They eat, drink, and feed their horses at our expense, undis- 
guisedly showing that they are resolved to reduce us to beg- 
gary. 

Lately seven other Zaptiehs, who had not even the pretext 
of collecting the taxes, entered our village, insulted the Chris- 
tian religion, and dishonored our wives and daughters, after 
which they seized three men who protested — Boghos, Mar- 
dig and Krikor — bound them with a twofold chain and hung 
them up by the feet from the rafters. They left them in this 
position until the blood began to flow from their nostrils. 
These poor men fell ill in consequence. The Zaptiehs, how- 



390 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA.' 

ever, declared publicly that they had treated the people thus 
merely in obedience to the special orders of the chief of 
the police. 

We therefore appeal to imperial justice to rescue us from 
this unbearable position. The inhabitants of the village of 
Melikan, Kaza of Keghi. 

(Signed) KATSHERE. 

26th March, 1895. 

The Armenians are naturally peaceful in all places: pas- 
sionately devoted to agriculture in the country, and wholly 
absorbed by mercantile pursuits in the towns. Lest their 
inborn aversion to bloodshed, however, should be overcome 
by the impulse of duty, the instinct of self-defense, or deep- 
rooted affection for those near and dear to them, they are for- 
bidden to possess arms, and the tortures that are inflicted on 
the few who disregard this law would bring a blush to the 
cheek of a countryman of Confucius. They must rely for 
protection exclusively upon the Turkish soldiers and the 
Turkish law. 

Kevork Vartanian, of the village of Mankassar (Sanjak of 
Alashkerd), testified, among other things, as follows: 

In 1892, a Kurd, Andon by name, son of Kerevash (of the 
tribe of Tshalal), came with his comrades to my house and 
took £5 in gold belonging to me, which I had saved up to 
buy seed corn with. I lodged a complaint against him, but 
the authorities dismissed me with contempt. Andon, hear- 
ing of my attempt to have him punished, came one night with 
twelve men, stood on our roof and looking down through the 
aperture, fired. My daughter-in-law, Yezeko, struck by a 
bullet, fell dead. Pier two boys and my child Missak (two 
years old) likewise lost their lives then and there. Then the 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 301 

Kurds entered the apartments and took my furniture, cloth- 
ing, four oxen and four cows."^ L hastened to the village of 
Karakilisse and complained to Rahim Pasha. Having 
heard my story, he said: "The Hamidieh Kurds are the Sul- 
tan's warriors. To do thus is their right. You Armenians 
are liars." And we were imprisoned. We did not obtain 
our release until we had paid £2 in gold. 

The following winter 200 soldiers entered our village under 
the leadership of Rahim Pasha himself. He at once told us 
that it was illegal to complain of the doings of the Kurds. 
Then he quartered himself and his troops upon us and de- 
manded daily eight sheep, ten measures of barley, besides 
eggs, poultry and butter. Forty days running our village 
supplied these articles of food gratis, receiving curses and 
blows for our pains. Rahim Pasha, angry with his host, 
Pare, for grumbling, had a copper vessel hung over the fire, 
and, when heated, ordered it to be placed on Pare's head. 
Then he had him stripped naked and little bits of flesh nipped 
out of his quivering arms with pincers. 

These ruffians had scarcely quitted our village when Aipe 
Pasha, with sixty horsemen, took their places. Seeing that 
there were no more sheep to be had in the village, they 
slaughtered and ate our cow^s and oxen, and having inflicted 
much suffering upon us during six days, they too left. To 
whom could we address our complaints, seeing that the le- 
gally constituted authorities themselves perpetrated these 

*Cows, horses, etc., are frequently lodged in the apartment in which the 
inmates live and sleep. I have passed many a restless night in a spacious 
room along with horses, buffaloes, oxen, sheep and goats 



392 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

things? Nothing was left for us but to quit the country, 
which we did. 

Take another case, in which the victim was the wife of a 
Protestant Armenian missionary, Madame Sookyassian, of 
the village of Todoveran (district of Bassen). I am person- 
ally acquainted with that family, and possess the portraits of 
all the members of it, including the lady, who was afterwards 
murdered. ''On September 12, 1894," deposed Armenag 
Sookyassian, the son of the missionary's wife, "we were 
seated at table in my father's house, when a boy came and 
told us that the Turks and Kurds had come to attack us 
Christians. My brother crossed over to the other side of the 
street, where our shop was, to fetch a revolver. Sixteen 
Kurdish horsemen meanwhile entered the street, ascended 
the roofs, and opened fire. We barricaded the door, but 
they broke it in. A bullet struck my mother on the shoulder, 
but without inflicting a serious wound. She defended her- 
self (being on the roof) by throwing stones. Meanwhile one 
of the Mohammedans leveled his gun, and, taking aim^, fired. 
The bullet struck her on the cheek and passed out under the 
ear, carrying away the whole side of her face. She dropped, 
was carried in, and asked for water, which could only be given 
by raising her upper jaw. Next morning she was dead. We 
complained, but no one was punished." 

One more typical instance, and I shall be done with this 
branch of the subject. The case which I am now about to 
narrate is taken not merely from the depositions of the par- 
ties interested, but from the official records, signed and sealed 
by government employes, which I myself have seen. It 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 395 

throws a more powerful light upon Turkish justice, and 
teaches a more useful lesson to those who still honestly be- 
lieve in Turkish promises than the most eloquent diatribe. 

In the month of June, 1890, the village of Alidjikrek was 
the scene of a double crime. The Armenian shepherds who 
were tending the flocks of the villagers rushed in excitedly, 
asking for help. 'The Kurds of Ibil Ogloo Ibrahim came 
up with their sheep and drove us out of the village pastures.'' 
Four young men set out to reason with the Moslems and as- 
sert the rights of property ; but scarcely had they reached the 
ground when the Kurds opened fire and killed one of the 
youths, named Hossep, on the spot. Another fell mortally 
wounded; his name, Haroothioon. Their comrades fled in 
horror to the village ; the people, dismayed, abandoned their 
work; the parish priest and several of the principal inhabit- 
ants ran to the scene of the murder, others rode off to inform 
the gendarmes. 

The Zaptiehs (gendarmes), accompanied by an official, 
were soon on the spot. They found Hossep dead, and the 
parish priest, Der Ohannes, administering the last consola- 
tions of religion to the dying Haroothioon. They ordered 
the prayers to cease, and menacing asked, "Where are the 
Kurdish murderers?" ''They have fled," was the reply. "In- 
deed; probably you, dogs, have killed them, and buried them 
out of sight. You are all my prisoners." (Turning to the 
priest) — "You, too, come !" And they were all taken to Has- 
sankaleh and thrown into the loathsome dungeon there. 

The parish priest, Der Ohannes, was a well-to-do man. 
The process of systematic impoverishment was then only be- 



396 8T0RT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

ginning. His brother, Garabed, and their ten comrades in 
misfortune, were Hkewise men of substance, and it seemed 
desirable to the officials that their property should change 
hands. They were left, therefore, to soak in the feted va- 
pors of a reeking Eastern prison-house. The time dragged 
slowly on, day by day, week by week, and month by month, 
till they seemed to have been completely forgotten. Their 
families were in an endless agony of fear, their affairs were 
utterly neglected, their health was wholly undermined. In 
this pandemonium they passed a year — the most horrible 
period of their lives. 

Then they humbly besought their persecutors to help them 
to their Hberty and to name the price. The terms were 
agreed to and they were advised to send Kurds to hunt up 
traces of the Kurdish murderers whom they were accused 
of having murdered in turn. "If they be found you will be 
set free." The cost of this advice and of the ways and means 
of carrying it out amounted to about £400, which the pris- 
oners were compelled to borrow at 40 per cent, interest. 

The search was, of course, successful, Kurdish and Turk- 
ish assassins, when their victims are Christians, having no 
need to hide their persons, no motive to hang their heads. 
What they do is well done. These particular heroes were 
found enrolled in a battalion of His Majesty's favorite cavalry 
— the Hamidieh of Alashkerd. They confessed and did not 
deny; a cloud of witnesses — Turks and Kurds of course, 
Christians being disqualified — testified in court in favor of 
the twelve Armenian prisoners, who were then set at liberty, 
with ruined fortunes and broken liealth. The sentence of the 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 397 

court set forth that the Armenians, charged with the crime of 
having killed certain Kurds who had assassinated two Ar- 
menian villagers, had proved their innocence, the Kurds in 
question having been discovered living and well, serving the 
Commander of the Faithful in the Hamidieh Corps. 

The Kurdish murderers, about whose precious lives so 
much fuss was made, were left in peace, and they still continue 
to serve His Majesty the Sultan with the same zeal and con- 
tempt of consequences as before. 

The stories told of these Kurdish Hamidieh officers in gen- 
eral, and one of them, named Mostigo, in particular, seemed 
so wildly improbable that I was at great pains to verify them. 
Learning that this particular Fra Diavolo had been arrested 
and was carefully guarded as a dangerous criminal in the 
prison of Erzeroum, where he would probably be hanged, I 
determined to obtain, if possible, an interview with him and 
learn the truth from his own lips, My first attempt ended in 
failure ; ]\Iostigo, being a desperate murderer, who had once 
before escaped from jail, was subjected to special restrictions, 
and if I had carried out my original plan of visiting him in dis- 
guise, the probability is I should not have returned alive. 
After about three weeks' tedious and roundabout negotia- 
tions, I succeeded in gaining the gaoler's ear, having first re- 
plenished his purse. I next won over the brigand himself, 
and the upshot of my endeavors was an arrangement that 
Mostigo was to be allowed to leave the prison secretly, and 
at night, to spend six hours in my room, and then to be re- 
conducted to his dungeon. 

When the appointed day arrived, the gaoler repudiated his 



308 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

part of the contract, on the ground that Mostigo, aware that 
his hfe was forfeited, would probably give the prison a wide 
berth if allowed to leave its precincts. After some further 
negotiations, I agreed to give two hostages for his return, one 
of them a brother Kurd, whose hfe the brigand's notions of 
honor would not allow him to sacrifice for the chance of sav- 
ing his own. At last, he came to me one evening, walking 
over the roofs, lest the police, permanently stationed at my 
door, should espy him. I kept him all night, showed him to 
two of the most respectable Europeans in Erzeroum, and, lest 
any doubt should be thrown on the story, had myself photo- 
graphed v/ith him next morning. 

The tale unfolded by that Kurdish noble constitutes a most 
admirable commentary upon Turkish regime in Armenia. 
This is not the place to give it in full. One or two short ex- 
tracts must suffice. 

Q. Now, Mostigo, I desire to hear from your own lips and 
to write down some of your wonderful deeds. I want to 
make them known to the "hat-wearers''* 

A. Even so. Announce them to the Twelve Powers.f 

There were evidently no misgivings about moral conse- 
quences; no fears of judicial punishment. And yet retribu- 
tion was at hand; Mostigo was said to be doomed to death. 
Desirous of clearing up this point, I went on: 

I am sorry to find that you are living in prison. Have you 
been long there? 

A. I, too, am sorry. Five months, but it seems an age. 
Q. These Armenians are to blame, I suppose? 



*The Kurds call all Europeans hat-wearers, and generally regard them 
with respect and awe. 
ff. e., to the whole univ^^rse. 



*9T07?r OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 3913 

A. Yes. ■ 

Q. You wiped out too many of them, carried off their 
women, burned their villages, and made it generally hot for 
them, I am told. 

A. (Scornfully) — That has nothing to do with my impris- 
onment. I shall not be punished for plundering Armenians. 
We all do that. I seldom killed, except when they resisted. 
But the Armenians betrayed me and I was caught. That's 
what I mean. But if I be hanged it will be for attacking and 
robbing the Turkish post and violating the wife of a Turkish 
colonel, who is now here in Erzeroum. But not for Arme- 
nians ! Who are they that I should suffer for them? 

After he had narrated several adventures of his, in the 
course of which he dishonored Christian women, killed Ar- 
menian villagers, robbed the post and escaped from prison, 
he went on to say : 

We did great deeds after that: deeds that would astonish 
the Twelve Powers to hear told. We attacked villages, killed 
people who would have killed us, gutted houses, taking 
money, carpets, sheep and women, and robbed travelers. * 
* ""' Daring and great were our deeds, and the mouths of 
men were full of them. 

Having heard the story of many of these "great deeds," in 

some of which fifty persons met their death, I asked: 

Q. Do the Armenians ever offer you resistance when you 
take their cattle and their women? 

A. Not often. They cannot. They have no arms, and 
they know that even if they could kill a few of us it would do 
them no good, for other Kurds would come and take ven- 
geance ; but when we kill them, no one's eyes grow large with 
rage. The Turks hate them, and we do not. We only want 
money and spoil, and some Kurds also want their lands, but 
the Turks want their lives. A few months ago I attacked the 
Armenian village of Kara Kipriu and drove off all the sheep 
in the place. I did not leave one behind. The villagers, in 
despair, did follow us that time and fire some shots at us, but 
it was nothing to speak of. We drove the sheep towards Er- 



400 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

zeroum to sell them there. But on the way we had a fight 
near the Armenian village of Sheme. The peasants knew we 
had lifted the sheep from their own people, and they attacked 
us. We were only five Kurds and they were many — the 
whole village was up against us. Two of my men — rayahs* 
only — were killed. We killed fifteen Armenians. They suc- 
ceeded in capturing forty of the sheep. The remainder we 
held and sold in Erzeroum. 

Q. Did you kill many Armenians generally? 

A. Yes. We did not wish to do so. We only want .booty, 
not lives. Lives are of no use to us. But we had to drive 
bullets through people at times to keep them quiet; that is, if 
they resisted. 

Q. Did you often use your daggers? 

A. No; generally our rifles. We must live. In autumn 
we manage to get as much corn as we need for the winter and 
money besides. We have cattle, but we take no care of them. 
W'e give them to the Armenians to look after and feed. 

Q. But if they refuse? 

A. Well, we burn their hay, their corn, their houses, and we 
drive off their sheep, so they do not refuse. We take back 
our cattle in spring, and the Armenians must return the same 
number that they received. 

Q. But if cattle disease should carry them off? 

A. That is the Armenians' affair. They must return us 
what we gave them, or an equal num.ber. And they know it. 
We cannot bear the loss. Why should not they? Nearly 
all our sheep come from them. 

After having listened to scores of stories of his expeditions, 
murders, rapes, etc., I again asked: "Can you tell me some 
more of your daring deeds, Mostigo, for the ears of the 
Twelve Powers?" to which I received this characteristic re- 
ply: 



*The Kurds are divided into Torens or nobles, who lead in war time, and 
possess and enjoy in peace; and Rayalis, who sacrifice their lives for their 
lords in all raids and feuds, and are wholly dependent on them at all times. 
A rayah's life may be taken by a loren with almost the same impunity as a 
Christian's. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. ^W,} 

Once the wolf was asked: "Tell us something about the 
sheep you devoured?'' and he said: "I ate thousands of sheep; 
which of them are you talking about?" Even so it is with my 
deeds. If I spoke and you wrote for two days, much would 
still remain untold. 

This brigand is a Kurd, and the name of the Kurds is 
legion. And yet the Kurds have shown themselves to be the 
most humane of all the persecutors of the Armenians. Need- 
ing money, this man robbed ; desirous of pleasure, he dishon- 
ored women and girls; defending his booty, he killed men 
and women, and during it all he felt absolutely certain of im- 
punity, so long as his victims were Armenians. 

The following case has been inquired into and verified by 
the foreign representatives in Turkey: In the spring of 1893 
Hassib Pasha, the Governor of Moush, feeling the need of 
some proofs of the disaffection of the Armenians of Avzoot 
and the neighboring villages, dispatched Police Captain 
Reshid Eifendi thither to seach for arms. Reshid set out, 
made careful inquiries and dihgently searched in the houses, 
on the roofs, under the groimd, but in vain. There were no 
firearms anywhere. He returned and reported that the vil- 
lagers had strictly observed the law forbidding them to pos- 
sess weapons of any kind. But Hassib Pasha waxed wroth. 
"How dare you assert what I know to be untrue?" he asked, 
"Go back this minute and find the arms. Don't dare return 
without them!" The Police Captain again rode off to Av- 
zoot and searched every nook and corner with lamps, so to 
say, turning the houses inside out. But he found nothing. 
Then he summoned the village elder, and said: "I have been 
sent to discover the hidden arms here. Tell me vv^here they 



404 STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA, 

are/*' "But there are none." "There must be some." "I as- 
sure you, you are mistakeii." "Well, now, listen. I have to 
find arms here, whether there are any or none, and I cannot 
return without them. Unless you deliver me some, I shall 
quarter myself and my men upon your village.'' This meant 
certainly plunder and probably rape. The elder was dis- 
mayed. "What are we to do?" he asked. "We have no 
arms." "Go and get some, then; steal them, buy them, but 
get them." Two or three persons were accordingly sent to 
the nearest Kurdish village, where they purchased three 
cartloads of old daggers, flintlock guns and rusty swords, 
which were duly handed over to Reshid. With these he re- 
turned to the Governor of Moush exulting. Hassib Pasha, 
seeing the collection, rejoiced exceedingly, and said: "You 
see now, I was right. I told you there were arms hidden 
away there. You did not seek for them properly at first Be 
more diligent in future." 

Verto Popakhian, an inhabitant of the village of Khalil 
Tshaush (Khnouss), narrated the following, the story of his 
troubles, which throws a curious sideHght on Turkish justice 
and Armenian peasant-life generally : 

A Kurd, named Djundee, endeavored to carry ofif my niece, 
Nazo, but we took her to Erzeroum, and gave her in marriage 
to an Armenian. We often have to give our young girls in 
marriage when they are mere children, eleven to twelve years 
old, or else dress them up in boys' clothes, to preserve them 
undefiled. Nazo's husband was the son of the parish priest 
of Hertev. The Kurds vowed vengeance upon me for sav- 
ing the girl thus. Djundee beat my brother so seriously that 
he was ill in bed for nearly six months, and he and his men 
drove off my cattle, burned our grain, threshing-floor and hay 
and ruined us completely. When the girl came home on a 



STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 405 

visit, Djundee and his Kurds attacked the house and carried 
her off. We complained to all the authorities in the place and 
in Erzeroum too. By the time they agreed to examine the 
girl publicly, she had borne a child to the Kurd, and shame 
prevented her return. She remained a Mohammedan. We 
then bought a gun for our protection, the law forbidding 
firearms not existing yet. In 1893 we sold the gun to a Kurd 
named Hadji Daho, but in 1894 the police came and de- 
manded it. We said we had sold it, and the Kurd bore out 
our assertion. He even showed it to them. But they ar- 
rested my brother and myself, and compelled us to give our 
two buffaloes in exchange for two guns, which they took 
away as incriminating proof of our guilt; and then sent us to 
Erzeroum prison. We were kept here, suffering great hard- 
ships, for a long time. When eight months had passed 
away, my brother died of ill-treatment. Then they prom- 
ised me my liberty in consideration of large bribes, which re- 
duced me to absolute beggary. I had no choice. I gave 
them all they asked, leaving myself and family of nineteen 
persons completely destitute. And then they condemned 
me to five years' imprisonment. 

Justice in all its aspects is rigorously denied to the Arme- 
nians. The mere fact that he dares to invoke it as plaintiff or 
prosecutor against a Kurd or a Turk is always sufficient to 
metamorphose him into a defendant or a criminal, generally 
into both, whereupon he is invariably thrown into prison^ 
What the prison really is cannot be made sufficiently clear in 
wordc. If the old English Star Chamber, the Spanish Inqui- 
sition, a Chinese opium den, the ward of a yellow-fever hospi- 
tal, and a nook in the lowest depths of Dante's Hell be con- 
ceived as blended and merged into one, the resulting picture 
will somewhat resemble a bad Turkish prison. Filth, stench, 
disease, deformity, pain in forms and degrees inconceivable 
in Europe, constitute the physical characterist'cs : the psycho- 
logical include the blank despair that is final, fiendish, fierce 



406 ST0R7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

malignity, hellish delight in human suffering, stoic self-sacri- 
fice in the cultivation of loathsomevices, stark madness raging 
in the moral nature only — the whole incarnated in grotesque 
beings whose resemblance to man is a living blasphemy 
against the deity. In these noisome dungeons, cries of ex- 
quisite suffering and shouts of unnatural delight continually 
commingle ; ribald songs are sung to the accompaniment of 
heartrending groans ; meanwhile the breath is passing away 
from bodies which had long before been soulless, and are un- 
wept save by the clammy walls whereon the vapor of unim- 
agined agonies and foul disease condenses into big drops and 
runs down in driblets to the reeking ground. Truly, it is a 
horrid nightmare quickened into life. 

I despatched a friend of mine to visit the political prisoners 
in the Bitlis penitentiary, and to ask them to give me a suc- 
cint account of their condition. Four of them replied in a 
joint letter, which is certainly the most gruesome piece of 
reading I have beheld ever since I first perused a description 
of the Black Hole. Only the least sensational passages can 
be stripped of the decent disguise of a foreign language and 
exposed to the light of day. It is dated "Bitlis Prison, Hell, 
March 28 (April 9), 1895," and begins thus: 

In Bitlis prison there are seven cells, each one capable of 
containing from ten to twelve persons. The number they 
actually contain is from twenty to thirty. There are no sani- 
tary arrangements whatever. Offal, vermin and the filth 
that should find a special place elsewhere arc heaped together 
in the same cell. * * * The water is undrinkable. Fre- 
quently, the Armenian prisoners are forced to drink "Khwl- 
itsh" water — i. e., water from the tank in which the Moham- 
medans perform their ablutions. * * * 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 407 

Then follows a brief but suggestive account of the treat- 
ment endured by the writers' comrades, many of whom died 
from the effects. For example, "Malkhass Aghadjanian and 
Serop Malkhassian of Avzoot (Moush) were beaten till they 
lost consciousness. The former was branded in eight places, 
the latter in twelve places, with a hot iron." The further out- 
rage which was committed upon Serop must be nameless. 
"Hagop Seropian, of the village of Avzoot, was stripped and 
beaten till he lost consciousness; then a girdle was thrown 
around his neck, and having been dragged into the Zaptieh's 
room, he was branded in sixteen parts of his body with red- 
hot ramrods/' Having described other sufferings to which 
he was subjected, such as the plucking out of his hair, standing 
motionless in one place without food or drink till nature could 
hold out no longer, the writer goes on to mention outrages 
for which the English tongue has no name, and civilized peo- 
ple no ears. Then he continues : 

Sirko Minassian, Garabed Malkhassian and Isro Ardvad- 
zadoorian, of the same village, having been violently beaten, 
were forced to remain in a standing position for a long time, 
and then had the contents of certain vessels poured upon 
their heaas. Korki Mardoyan, of the village of Semol, was 
violently beaten ; his hair was plucked out by the roots, and he 
was forced to stand motionless for twenty-four hours. Then 
Moolazim Hadji Ali and the gaoler, Abdoolkadir, forced him 
to perform the so-called Sheitantopy,* which resulted in his 
death. He was forty-five years of age. Mekhitar Saforian 
and Khatsho Baloyan of Kakarloo (Boolanyk) were sub- 

*Literally "Devil's ring." The hands are tightly bound together, and the 
feet, tied together by the great toes, are forced up over the hands. The 
remainder of the Sheitantopy consists of a severe torture and a beastly 
crime. 



408 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

jected to the same treatment. Mekhitar was but fifteen and 
Khatsho only thirteen years old. Sogho Sharoyan, of Alva- 
rmdj (Moush), was conveyed from Moush to Bitlis prison 
handcuffed. Here he was cruelly beaten, and forced to main- 
tain a standing position without food. Whenever he fainted 
they revived him with douches of cold water and stripes. 
They also plucked out his hair, and burned his body with red- 
hot irons. Then '■' * '^ (they subjected him to treat- 
ment which cannot be described). * * * Hambartzoon 
Boyadjian, after his arrest, was exposed to the scorching heat 
of the sun for three days. Then he was taken to Semal, 
where he and his companions were beaten and shut up in a 
church. They were not only not allowed to leave the church 
to reHeve the wants of nature, but were forced to defile the 
baptismal fonts and the church altar. * ^ * Where are 
you, Christian Europe and America? 

The four signatures at the foot of this letter include that of a 
highly respected and God-fearing ecclesiastic. 

I am personally acquainted with scores of people who have 
passed through these prison mills. The stories they narrate 
of their experiences there are gruesome, and would be hard 
to believe were they not amply confirmed by the still more 
eerie tales told by their broken spirits, their w^asted bodies and 
the deep scars and monstrous deformities that will abide with 
them till the grave or the vultures devour them. But let us 
take one of the usual and by no means most revolting cases of 
arrest and imprisonment as an illustration. 

A young man from the village of Avzood (Moush district) 
went to Russia in search of work, and found it. He also mar- 
ried, and lived there for several years. Tov\'ards the close of 
1892 he came back to his native village, and the police, in- 
formed that "an Armenian who has lived in Russia is re- 
turned," despatched four of their number under the orders of 



^STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 411 

Isaag Tshaush to Avzood. They arrived two hours after 
sundown, and while three of them guarded the house where 
the young man was staying, the leader entered. Shots were 
heard immediately after, and the young Armenian and Isaag 
lay dead. The authorities in Bitlis then sent a Colonel of the 
Zaptiehs to Avzood to see "justice" done. And it was done 
very speedily. The colonel summoned the men of the village 
—none of whom were mixed up in the matter — and put them 
in prison. Then the officials deflowered all the girls, and dis- 
honored all the young women in Avzood, after which they lib- 
erated the men, except about twenty, whom they conveyed to 
the gaol of BitHs. A few of these died there, and ten others 
were soon afterwards dismissed. Finally they decided to 
charge a young teacher, Markar, of the village of Vartenis, 
with the murder of Isaag Tshaush, and as there was no evi- 
dence against him, the other prisoners were ordered to tes- 
tify. 

When the trial came on, and the incriminating document 
was read, the signatories stripped themselves in court, ex- 
hibited the ugly marks left by the red-hot irons, and called 
God to witness that that evidence of theirs, wrung from them 
by maddening torture, was a lie. Markar, on the other hand, 
declared that he was not in Avzood village at all on the night 
in question. But these statements were unavaiHng; he was 
hanged last year, and the "witnesses" condemned to various 
terms in fortified towns. Some of the women dishonored by 
the Zaptiehs died from the effects of the treatment to which 
they were subjected. 

All accounts of the prisons in Armenia, Turkish, Kurdish 



412 8T0RT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

and Christian, agree in essential characteristics. I lately 
called on a very respectable Armenian — a man of good edu- 
cation and once a person of property — who has passed 
through several prisons, the object of his incarceration being 
the desire to deprive him of all he possessed. Him I ques- 
tioned about the treatment of the prisoners, and what he said 
was this : 

Armenian prisoners are very often tortured; but a good 
deal depends upon the place. Some prisons are very bad, 
being noted for the abominable things that go on inside their 
walls; others are not so horrible. The prison of Erzeroum, 
for example, is not nearly so bad as that of BitHs, though 
there, too, torture is occasionally employed in a fiendish way. 
The reason is, I conjecture, that the foreign consuls in Erze- 
roum can always get information about what goes on in the 
prison there, and the authorities are restrained by the knowl- 
edge of this. 

Q. Then there is no torture in Erzeroum? 

A. There is sometimes, but not nearly so often as elsewhere. 
I have seen the "Standing Box" there, and I know it was used 
some time ago, but I fancy it would not be often employed — 
certainly not nearly so often as in BitHs. 

Q. What is the Standing Box? 

A. It is a small cupboard, just large enough for one man 
to stand in, something like a sentry-box in shape. The pris- 
oner put there could not sit, lean or move. 

Q. Surely he could lean, at least, against the wall? 

A. No ; because it bristles all over with sharp iron points, 
and on the ground there is barely room enough for his two 
feet to stand. He is kept here for twenty-four, thirty-six, 
forty-eight hours, as the case may be ; sometimes longer still. 
Two or more Zaptiehs always stand guard, and see that the 
thing is properly carried out. He receives nothing to eat or 
to drink, and is not allowed to leave even to attend to the 
wants of nature. This is a horrible torture. It was applied 
to Markar, the teacher, and to numbers of my friends and ac- 
quaintances. Damadian's servant, Sogho Sharoyan, was 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 413 

subjected to it; so were Hagop Seropian, of Avzood, Sirko 
Minassian, Garabed Molkhassian, Korki Mardoyan, Sagha- 
tiel Mirzoyan of Khosgheldi (Boolanyk), and scores of others. 
But this is by no means the worse. The torture of Sheitan- 
topy, which is also an outrage that — 
Yes, I know all about that. 

The gaolers grow rich on the money they wring from the 
inmates of the cells. The prison-keeper of Bitlis prison, Ab- 
doolkader, a wretch who, God having presumably made him, 
may be called a man, earns enormous sums in this way. He 
lately spent £500 on his house, and two or three Turkish 
merchants are said to be doing business on his capital, al- 
though his salary is only about 50s. a month. These sums 
are received as bribes, not for any positive return made to 
the prisoners, but for mere relief from torture, employed 
solely for this purpose. The following case may give some 
idea of the nature of the relief thus highly paid for. Some 
five months ago three men of the village of Krtabaz were ar- 
rested and imprisoned. The fact that they were released 
without trial ten weeks later is evidence enough of their in- 
nocence of crime. They were taken to the prison of Hassan- 
kaleh. The room in which they were confined was over- 
crowded. The term overcrowding does not connote the 
same thing in Armenia as in European prisons. They had 
no room to lie down at all. Some Kurdish prisoners con- 
fined in the same dismal den, who enjoyed special privileges, 
had but two and one-half feet space to sleep in. In one cor- 
ner of the dungeon a hole in the wall represented the prison- 
equivalent of sanitation, and these three Armenians were 
told that they must stand up by this hole, and might lean 



414 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

against the wall to sleep. This they did for fifteen consecu- 
tive nights. The stench, the filth, the vermin exceed all 
conception. After the lapse of fifteen days, by dint of starv- 
ing themselves, they were enabled to give part of their food 
to some of the Kurds, one of whom allowed the Armenians 
to take his place in turn during the day. This was not much, 
for the Kurds themselves had only sitting space, about two 
and one-half feet long; still it did afford rehef. But the 
Kurd was severely punished for this benevolence or enter- 
prise. His rations of bread were cut off, and he was put in 
irons for several days. The men he thus befriended, who 
now aver they owe their lives to him, were notables of their 
village, and innocent persons, to boot, who were released 
some weeks later because ''they had done no wrong.'^ 

"The Armenians could help themselves if they really 
wished,'^ I lately heard an Englishman say, with a serious 
and convinced air; "they have only to turn Mohammedans. 
Surely God would not punish them for that." It is certainly 
true that the moment they embraced Islam their troubles 
would cease, and that now, though martyrs by suffering, 
deprived of the palm, they are but contemptible "criminals'' 
in name. 

The following story is calculated to bring out in strong re- 
lief the temptation w^iich the Armenians have to give up 
their faith. The narrative will be found interesting on other 
grounds besides. 

Melik Agha was a notable and noble Armenian of the vil- 
lage of Abri (Boolanyk district), blessed with sons and 
grandsons, cattle, cheep, land, corn and hay in abundance — 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 415 

a sort of Armenian Job on a small scale. A noble Moham- 
medan of the same village, Kiamil Sheikh, by name, envying 
his riches, desired to draw them to himself, and failing that, 
to destroy them and their owner. Last autumn for this pur- 
pose he had Melik's hay, corn, etc., burned to ashes. Then 
the Sheikh's men came and took away five of his horses and 
killed 150 of his sheep, leaving their carcasses to rot where 
they fell. This was wanton waste in a country where people 
are continually poor and frequently hungry. Melik, there- 
fore, went to Kop where the Kaimakam resides and invoked 
the strong arm of the law. While he was in Kop complain- 
ing, and his sons were away on business, the Sheikh's people, 
ever on the watch, dropped into his house, murdered the two 
children of Melik's eldest son and abducted their mother, 
who was very far gone with child. Melik Agha, hearing of 
this calamity, set out for Erzeroum to lay the matter before 
the chief authorities of the Vilayet. The upshot of his ap- 
plication was that Selim Pasha was deputed to inquire into 
the business and to get the woman back — the children, of 
course, could not be resuscitated, nor could their murderer 
be punished. The captor refused to deliver up the young 
woman, saying, "She will publicly declare that she embraces 
Islam." Then the Pasha, turning to Melik, asked, "What 
will you say or do if your daughter-in-law does publicly 
affirm that she becomes a Mohammedan?" 

"I shall say that we too will become Mohammedans rather 
than allow our wives and daughters to pass into other hands." 
Then the woman was fetched, but seeing her surrounded by 
Sheikhs, and afraid of speaking the truth, Melik said to the 



416 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Pasha: "She is ill. In a few days she will become a mother. 
Give her peace until then, and meanwhile send her to any 
Turkish house you like in Erzeroum. In a fortnight we shall 
hear what she has to say." To this all agreed, and the Pasha 
departed. Three days later the woman's husband (Melik's 
eldest son) was killed by Kiamil's people in broad daylight. 
Even the Turkish family in which the woman lived were hor- 
rified, and requested the Sheikhs to come and take her away, 
as they refused to have anything more to do with the busi- 
ness. 

Soon after this, Melik's second son, Mgirdeetch, shot two 
of the Sheikhs in the field. It was a very wrong and un- 
christian thing to do, and cases of the kind give correct 
people in Europe a pretext for complaining of the vindictive- 
ness of the Armenians. What he should have done, we 
know, was to entertain the Sheikhs at dinner, or at least to 
let them pass on in peace; though there are certain highly 
civilized Europeans — nay, ministers of Christian churches, 
known to me, who virtually say: 

"God be praised for every instinct wliicli rebels against a lot, 
Where the brute survives the human and man's upright form i:i not." 

However this may be, Mgirdeetch and his younger broth- 
er, feeling that they and their relatives were doomed, ran 
into the house of Mussah Bey and proclaimed themselves 
Mohammedans. Then they sent a messenger to their father 
informing him of what they had done and exhorting him to 
go and do likewise. And he did. A Mullah was appointed 
to teach the newly-converted family the doctrines and wor- 



8 TORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 419 

ship of Islam, and, as fate would have it, the Mullah in ques- 
tion was a man who had been Melik's faithful servant for 
many long years, and was far more disposed to become a 
Christian than his former master was to recognize the teach- 
ings of the Koran. Melik having discussed his plans with 
this friendly Mullah, sent his widowed daughter with a 
grown-up girl and three boys to Russia. When they drew 
near to the frontier, at Gara-Ghedook, the Kurds attacked 
them and strove to obtain possession of the girl. But she 
held her mother's hand and refused to be delivered up to the 
lusts of these savages. Then the Kurds shot her dead. Her 
mother took the body on her back and carried it to the village 
Ghairavank, about three miles from Kaghziman, where it 
was buried by Father Raphael. After some time MeHk him- 
self and the other members of his family escaped to Russia, 
leaving behind his house, lands, hay, corn, cattle, etc., and 
taking only a little money, of which the Kurds robbed him on 
the road. He was thankful to God for having allowed him 
to get across the frontiers with his life. 

The difficulty of emigrating from Turkey, with money, 
clothing, or women, will be best understood in the light of a 
few concrete examples. Not that the Turks object to their 
leaving. On the contrary — and this is the most conclusive 
proof of the existence of the plan of extermination — they 
actually drive them over the frontier, and then persistently 
refuse to allow them to return. 

Sahag Garoyan, questioned as to the reasons why he and 
his family of ten persons emigrated from his village of Khe- 
ter (Sanjak of Bayazid). deposed as follows: 



420 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

We could not remain because we were treated as beasts of 
burden by Rezekam Bey, son of Djaffar Agha, and his men, 
who belong to His Majesty's Hamidieh corps, and can there- 
fore neither be punished nor complained of. I emigrated 
towards the end of last year. Rezekam had come with his 
followers, as if it were war time, and taken possession of the 
houses of the Armenians, driving the occupants away. Only 
seven families were allowed to stay on. The others, having 
no place to go to, took refuge in the church. We had to feed 
the Kurds for three months, giving them our corn, sheep, 
etc., and keeping their cattle in fodder. We had to serve 
some of them as beasts of burden. Rezekam himself paid a 
weekly visit to the village of Karakilisse, and levied a contri- 
bution of iio Turkish on the inhabitants, besides hay, barley, 
etc., for his men. At last, unable to bear this burden any 
longer, we addressed a complaint to the authorities. They 
told us to be gone. Then a Kurd, named Ghazaz Teamer, 
ordered us to sign a document setting forth that we were 
prosperous and happy. This was to be sent to Constanti- 
nople, as he wished to be appointed Yoozbashi of the Hami- 
diehs. No one signed the paper, whereat Teamer grew 
angry, and killed Avaki and his brother. Five nionths later 
he killed Minass, son of Kre, of the village of Mankassar. 
When the winter came on last year, Rezekam Bey impris- 
oned our neighbor Sarkiss, son of Sahag, had his head 
plunged in cold water and dried ; after that it was steeped in 
petroleum and his hair burned off. Then he endeavored to 
violate Sara, Sarkiss's sister, but she was smuggled away in 
time. Rezekam's servant, Kheto, dishonored Moorad's wife, 
and a few days later entered the house of Abraham, an in- 
habitant of the same village, commanding him to go and 
work for Rezekam Bey. Abraham's wife, who was about to 
become a mother, begged that he might be allowed to stay at 
home, but Kheto kicked her in the stomach, and she was de- 
livered of a dead child an hour or so after. Oh, we could not 
live there — not if we were beasts, instead of Christians. 

Mgirdeetch Mekhoyan, aged thirty-five, of the village of 
Koopegheran (Sandjak of Bayazid), deposed: 'T emigrated 
in 1894, because Aipa Pasha came with forty Kurdish fami- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 421 

lies, demolished our church, and took everything we had." 
The same story, with variations, comes from every Sanjak, 
almost from every village, of the five Armenian provinces. 
Bedross Kozdyan, aged fifty-five, of the village of Arog 
(Sandjak of Van), testified: 

I left my village and my country with my family in Aug- 
ust last year (1894), because we were driven away by the 
Kurds under Tri, son of Tshalo, who was abetted by the 
Turkish authorities. He first came and violated three girls 
and three young married women, whom he took away in 
spite of their cries and prayers. Three Armenians tried to 
protect the wetched women, who implored them not to let 
them go. But the Kurds killed the three on the spot. Their 
names were Sarkiss, Khatsho and Keveark. Next day he 
and his men drove off the sheep of the villagers. We com- 
plained to the Governor of Van, but he said he could not 
move in the matter. Ten days later the Kurds came again, 
and carried away our wheat, barley and live stock, and 
burned the hay which they could not transport. Then they 
knocked down the altar of our church, hoping to find gold 
and silver hidden away there. We again besought the au- 
thorities to protect us, but they replied, "We'll slaughter you 
like sheep if you dare to come again with your complaints 
against good Mohammedans." Then we took what we 
could with us and set out for Russia. W^hen we reached 
Sinak six armed Kurds attacked us, robbed us of everything 
we had, and sent us over the frontier with nothing but our 
clothes. 

Ove Oviants, of the village of Leez, Sandjak of Boolanyk, 

deposed: 

I emigrated with my family of eight persons, because we 
were driven off by the Kurds under Terpoi Neato, with the 
connivance of the Imperial authorities. He came to our 
village and took three yoke of oxen, seventy sheep and two 
mules. A month later they drove off seventy more sheep 
and two mules, the latter and seventeen of the sheep my own 
property. We were 250 Armenian families, but against a 



422 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

handful of Kurds we could do nothing, having no firearms. 
One night they broke open my door and took away the 
clothing and ornaments of the women of our family and two 
cows. Modego Tilo, seeing that one of our neighbors had 
a handsome daughter, carried her ofif and forced her to be- 
come a Moslem. The girPs father appealed to the VaH of 
Bitlis, who ordered the Kaimakam of Kop to flog him 
soundly and then imprison him for seven days. This was 
done. He w~as warned on being released that if he com- 
plained again he would be tortured to death. My family and 
four others then left for Russia. At Apazin the Kurds at- 
tacked us and took everything we possessed. 

Khatsho Garabedian, of the village of Kiavoormi (Sand- 

jak of Khnouss), declared: 

I am forty-five years of age. The reason I left with my 
family w^as because the Turkish authorities allowed the 
Kurds under Heasso to strip me of nearly everything I pos- 
sessed, and then the Turkish Zaptiehs came and demanded 
the taxes, which I had no means of paying. The chief of 
these Zaptiehs then said: "You have no money, but you 
have a pretty wife. Lend her to me, and I will give you a 
receipt for the taxes." I contrived to have my wife taken to 
another house, and when the Turkish official saw that he 
could not dishonor her, he punished me. First, cold water 
was poured over me, then dung and other filth was rubbed 
into my face, and a strap thrown around my neck. In this 
way I was dragged through the village. On my return, they 
took my ox, the only possession that was still left me, and 
had it not been for that ox they would have taken my life. I 
then fied with my family, and we had only two Turkish 
pounds in money among us. The soldiers, however, stopped 
us and made us deliver up that, and we entered Russia as 
poor as the day we were born. 

The plan of extermination is obviously working smoothly 
and well. The Christian population is decimated, villages 
are changing hands almost as quickly as the scenes shift in a 
comic opera, and the exodus to Russia and the processions 
to the churchyard are increasing. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 423 

Three hundred and six of the principal inhabitants of the 

District of Khnouss gave me a signed petition when I was 

leaving Armenia, and requested me to lay it before "the hu- 

m.ane and noble people of England." In this document they 

truly say : 

We now solemnly assure you that the butchery of Sassoun 
is but a drop in the ocean of Armenian blood shed gradually 
and silently all over the empire since the late Turko-Russian 
war. Year by year, month by month, day by day, innocent 
men, women and children have been shot down, stabbed or 
clubbed to death in their houses and their fields, tortured in 
strange fiendish ways in fetid prison cells, or left to rot in 
exile under the scorching sun of Arabia. During the prog- 
ress of that long and horrible tragedy no voice was raised for 
mercy, no hand extended to help us. That process is still 
going on, but it has already entered upon its final phases, and 
the Armenian people are at the last gasp. Is European sym- 
pathy destined to take the form of a cross upon our graves? 

English people have not even a remote notion of the ex- 
tent to which young married women and girls are outraged 
all over Armenia by Turkish soldiers, imperial Zaptiehs, 
Kurdish officers and brigands — and outraged with such ac- 
companiments of nameless brutality that their agonies often 
culminate in a horrible death. Girls of eleven and twelve — 
nay, of nine — are torn from their families and outraged in 
this way by a band of "men" whose names are known, and 
whose deeds are approved by the representatives of law and 
order. 

In 1893 six Kurds came to the village of Tshekhi, entered 
the house of Garabed Ghiragossian, and compelled the host 
to provide them with an abundant meal and their horses with 
fodder, Having eaten their fill, they went out into the gar- 



424 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

den and partook of green fruit and cucumbers till they sick- 
ened. Then they accused Garabed of having poisoned them, 
and set about punishing him condignly. They tied him 
tightly to a pillar in the apartment, then seized his wife, and 
each of them dishonored her in turn. After this they told 
the wretched man that they would set him free if he paid them 
a certain sum for his liberty. 

On November 7 last, a Turk of the city of Bayazid asked 
Avedis Krmoyan to pay a little debt. The Armenian, not 
having the money at the time, besought his creditor to wait 
a few weeks. The Turk refused, and insisted on taking 
Krmoyan's wife as a pledge that the money would be paid. 
Entreaties and tears were unavailing; the woman was carried 
ofl, and then forced to become a Moslem. She can never 
return to her husband again. 

In the village of Khosso Veran (Bassen) a girl named Sel- 
vy was seized by a Turk as security for a debt contracted by 
her father. The creditor kept her three months and dishon- 
ored her; nor would he consent to set her free until Giragoss 
Ohannissean w^ent bail for her. As the debt, however, is un- 
paid, the Turk has a mortgage on her still. This sort of 
thing cannot be said to be uncommon, for although I knew 
but three cases of it from personal knowledge I heard of 
more than a score in different parts of Armenia. 

The following case is one in which I took a very lively in- 
terest, because I am well acquainted with the victim and her 
family. Her nam.e is Lucine Mussegh, her native village 
Khnoossaberd. Born in 1878, Lucine was sent at an early 
age to the Armenian Missionary School at Erzeroum, 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. ^T" 

where she was taught the doctrines of evangeUcal Christi- 
anity, her father, Aghadjan Kemahan, having always mani- 
fested a strong sympathy for Protestantism. Armenian girls 
are in chronic danger of being raped by Turks and Kurds, 
and Armenian parents are continually scheming for the 
purpose of shielding them from this calamity, which, as we 
have seen, occasionally results in death. The means usually 
employed are very early marriages or attempts to pass off 
the girls as boys. I have known children to be taken from 
school, married, allowed to live a few months with their hus- 
bands or wives, and then sent back to school again. This is 
what happened to Lucine, who, taken from school at the age 
of fourteen, was wedded to a boy of her own age, Milikean by 
name, and having lived some time with him under his father's 
roof, was sent to the Protestant school once more. One 
night, during her husband's absence from home, she was 
seized by some men, dragged by the hair, gagged, and taken 
to the house of Hussni Bey. This man is the son of the Dep- 
uty-Governor of the place. He dishonored the young 
woman and sent her home the next day ; but her husband re- 
fused to receive her any more, and she is now friendless and 
alone in the world. 

Lucine's father presented a complaint to the colonel of 
the Hamidiehs, and a petition to the parish priest. The 
Metropolitan Archbishop of Erzeroum likewise took the 
matter in hand, and appealed to the Governor-General of 
the Vilayet and to the court of Khnouss. But all to no pur- 
pose. Lucine is now a pariah. In her Appeal to the Women 



428 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

of England, which is too long and too naive to find a place 
here, Lucine says : 

We suffered in patience when our corn, butter and honey 
were seized, and we were left poor and hungry; w^e bowed 
our heads in sorrowful resignation when our kith and kin 
were cut down by the Kurds and the Turks. Are we also to 
be silent and submissive now that our race is being poisoned 
at its source? Now that child-mothers and baby-daughters 
are being defiled and brutalized by savages? Say, Christian 
sisters, is there in truth no remedy? '•' '-^ * We ask for 
no revenge, for no privileges; we ask only that * « * 
but need I be more explicit to Enghsh matrons, wives and 
sisters? * * * Although we are Armenians, we are 
Christians; I was brought up in a Protestant school, as you 
were; I drew my moral sustenance from the Bible, as you 
did; I was taught to feel and think, as you were. * h^ >5^ 
For tlie love of tlie God, then, whom we worship in common, 
help us, Christian sisters, before it is too late, and take the 
thanks of the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of my 
people, and with them the gratitude of one for whom, in 
spite of her vouth, death w^ould come as a happv release. 

(Signed) LUCINE MUSSEIGH. 

I have also received a piteous appeal to the women of Eng- 
land from some hundreds of Armenian women of the District 
of Khnouss, begging as an inestimable favor to be shielded 
from the brutal treatment to which they are all subjected. It 
is needless to pubHsh it here. Written appeals are seldom 
very forcible. If the reader had seen the wretched women 
themselves, as I saw them, and heard them tell their grue- 
some tales in the simplest of words, punctuated by sobs and 
groans, emphasized by misery and squalor, they would be in 
a condition to form some idea of the state of things in Ar- 
menia, which in the good old times of theocracy would have 
brought down consuming fire from heaven. In the village 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 429 

of Begli Akhmed, for example, I met a woman of about 

twenty-eight, clothed in ragged pieces of dirty carpets, with 

a pale, emaciated boy of twelve, suffering irom a terrible 

cough, who looked like a typhus patient aged only six or 

seven. I asked her to tell her story, and this is what she 

said: 

My name is Atlass Manookian ; I come from the village of 
Khrt (Khnouss district). We were very well off, but the 
Kurds took away everything we had. Everything, Efifendi ; 
still my poor husband worked for me and the child here, 
though they told us to go. One day when I was bringing 
bread to my husband in the field, they struck me on the head 
and dishonored me. That was in the daytime. 

"It was at noon, mother, when father used to eat his bread, 
that they did that to you," broke in the ghost of a child. I 
never in my life witnessed anything more horrible than the 
sight of those two friendless, hopeless wretches, as they stood 
there trembling in the cold, the dying child, thus simply bear- 
ing witness that his mother was dishonored in the fields by a 
number of neighboring Kurds. She then went on: "I com- 
plained to the head officer, Sheikh Moorad, but the Bim- 
bashi beat me cruelly about the head and back, and knocked 
me down. Then, last spring, when my husband was sowing 
corn, Ali Mahmed came up and killed him." "With an axe, 
mother," said the boy. "We are now alone in the world, 
wandering and begging, and nobody knows us," said the 
woman. Having given her some coins, I hurried away, 
vainly striving to shake off the horrible impression which 
clung to me Hke a hideous ghost for weeks afterwards. 



430 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Mr. Dillon very clearly sets forth the condition of the Ar- 
menians in his article, but we have three more letters which 
have been sent for publication. One of these was written to 
the students of one of the leading theological seminaries in 
this country by a former graduate; one by the Rev. Dr. 
Whittle, and the other by Dr. Grace N. Kimball. 

FROM A MISSIONARY TO HIS FORMER FELLOW-STUDENTS. 

November 30, 1895. 
My Dear Friends: The role of a 'Trophet of Ills" is not a 
pleasant one to play. Many hundred letters have been writ- 
ten within a year predicting great calamity, and no one seems 
to have heeded the warnings. Four months ago I sent an 
article in which I enlarged on the statement that if the Powers 
acted there was no danger, but if they failed to act and were 
delayed, the consequence would be awful. Now the storm 
has broken, and it is more horrible than anyone conceived 
of. After Sassoun, after the Commission of Inquiry, after 
all the pressure that has been applied in Constantinople, un- 
der the very eyes of the Powers, in this month of November 
the Kurds and the soldiery have slaughtered over 20,000 
Christians and committed awful atrocities on the human 
race. They have sacked every city and town in the prov- 
inces covered by the Reform Scheme, and the carnival of 
blood is extending in eiver-widening circles to all parts of the 
empire. The calling out of the reserves, the sending of war- 
ships, the conference in Vienna, have all come too late. 
There are said to be 250,000 destitute tonight in the empire. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 431 

And now the Turks have waked up to the value of a certain 
modern invention, e. g., the telegraph, and they will fill the 
earth with their ''official" lies. Hitherto no newspaper in 
the Armenian language or the Arabic language has been 
allowed to mention Armenia. Now they are teeming with 
the most atrocious misrepresentations and fabrications. No- 
thing is straight that can be made crooked. And the copy- 
ing of these lies will throw dust in the eyes of half the world, 
while the ''weaknesses," not the "Powers," are talking great 
things about the Armenian question, the Turks have decided 
to dispose of it by wiping the Armenians from the face of the 
earth. Give them a few months more, and the Armenian 
question will be settled forever, as far as all human affairs 
are concerned. The fact is, that never for a moment have 
they paused in their awful purpose. Perhaps this last grand 
carnage is their kindest act. Death is easier and sweeter 
than the life they are living. And perhaps this last scene in 
the tragedy will open the eyes of those who must act to the 
real character of the rulers in this empire. 

For many reasons, which I need not mention, I have kept 
my name and pen from these matters, but I can see no good 
reason for silence now. , ^. ^ , 

I wonder if anyone in all America realizes fully the awful 
enormity of the calamities being heaped upon Christians 
here? One murder in any town is a pall to the whole people ; 
ten murders would create a panic. Multiply that by fifty; 
think of corpses heaped by hundreds into holes and rivers! 
In Diarbekir more than 5000 were slaughtered within three 
days. Those who died are but a fraction of those on whom 



432 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

have been heaped outrage, indignities, fear, fever, hunger, 
and cold will add another 5000, and tens of thousands will 
never know another pleasant home, a peaceful night while 
life lasts. Think of men, women and children being hunted 
and beaten to death as people hunt and kill a dog! A refu- 
gee came into our house a few days ago whose aunt was 
treated to outrage and death in ways that cannot be de- 
scribed. His brother Hved in Constantinople, and when 
fourteen corpses were rohed out from under a bridge, that 
brother was among them, with his face almost cut ofif. In 
the government centre, one-half an hour away from our 
house, are Kurds who have helped at such barbarities, and 
their conversation the whole day long is of the things they 
did and saw enacted. No wonder our people here are in 
great consternation. No wonder that all fear for the people 
of Damascus ! Could they look forward to death alone, that 
would be easy; but there are many things more horrible 
which loom up as possibilities. A dog will not eat a dog, 
one of his own kind; but the outrages, indignities, barbaric 
and fiendish, which these human devils heap on defenseless 
women and children are horrible beyond all conception. It 
makes one shudder to see the battalions of Kurds and Arna- 
ruts being poured into Syria, massed in Damascus and quar- 
tered in every section of the outlying districts. May God 
hasten and make no tarrying. 

■ ;|: ;!; ^ * ^ * * >k :!< >k * * ?!< 

Our duty at the present time is to be at our posts. I am 
sure I could cause a semi-panic tomorrow by sending my 
family over the mountain to Beyrout.' But not being con- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 435 

scious of any immediate danger, we go right on in our daily 
duties, and our presence does help many troubling souls to 
keep still. The whole town is buying arms, making powder 
and casting bullets. We can hardly view these preparations 
with favor, seeing that even before the danger is past they 
may quarrel and use these on each other. A week ago after 
midnight some drunken rowdies went out of their haunts and 
tried their guns on the midnight air. So many shots were 
fired that the whole town was aroused. A woman in a house 
near our own went crazy from fear, and did not recover her 
reason for days. Many of the older people remember the 
massacre of i860, and their horror at the possibility of an- 
other such experience is pitiable to behold. 

December 6. — Our latest news here is that cholera has ap- 
peared among the half-famished soldiers in Damascus. This 
is another woe added to the woes of the empire. What these 
soldiers will do when driven to desperation no one can fore- 
tell. They are strangers in language and customs. The 
Turkish government never allows a man to serve in his 
own country. Soldiers living in Syria are sent either to 
Yemen or Crete or Constantinople, and Damascus is filled 
with troops who live in the north of the empire. There is a 
prime wisdom in this. When they are ordered to fire on a 
mob, they do not hesitate, for they are sure they are not firing 
on any of their own families or friends. 

If I would tell you one in a thousand of the wild rumors 
afloat, I would need to keep writing all night. They range 
from the most incredible to the actual, and often take on the 



436 STORY OF TURKEY ARD ARMENIA, 

nature of prophecy — of coming events which cast their 
shadows before. Where they rise no one knows. They are 
one of the sad fruits of a muzzled press. Not a newspaper 
in the Turkish Empire dares refer to passing events, and 
hence the poor people prevented from knowing the truth, 
torture themselves with the most lonesome stories and ap- 
prehensions. 

FROM REV. W. A. WHITTLE, D. D. 

Having just returned from a second and somewhat ex- 
tended tour through Asia Minor and other countries border- 
ing on Armenia, I feel that I owe it to the Christian people of 
America, and our fellow-religionists in the far East, to relate 
some of my recent observations and experiences. 

Some fifteen years ago, the Sultan of Turkey, together 
w^th his high officials, determined as a stroke of political pol- 
icy to create a revival of Mohammedanism. Since this de- 
cision was arrived at, Turkey has been more of a religious 
than a political government. Hundreds of mosques 
throughout the Turkish Empire were immediately turned 
into schools, so-called colleges and universities. Into these 
schools multitudes of boys and young men were gathered, 
and there they were compelled to spend from two to six years 
in studying the Koran. Philosophy, mathematics, history, 
natural history, algebra, geometry and astronomy, so assid- 
uously cultivated by the ancient Arabs, are unknown in these 
schools; indeed, the scientific studies of the Western world 
are by these self-complacent people utterly despised. I have 
made personal visits to a number of these theological semi- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 437 

naries — a strange name you will say for institutions from 
which issue such direful influences. 

The largest one of these schools that I have visited, in- 
deed I believe it is the largest in the world, is in Cairo, Egypt, 
where there are said to be 10,000 students. Their ages 
ranged from five years upwards; many of them were blind. 
The pupils were barefoot and half-clothed ; each of them had 
a pigeon-hole less than three feet square assigned to him, in 
which he kept his books, clothes and food. On entering a 
large open court, with marble pavement, I saw hundreds of 
students sitting flat on the floor, grouped around their sev- 
eral teachers. Many of the teachers and students were 
stretched out full length on the pavement, wath bread and 
dates in one hand and the Koran in the other. Many, if not 
all of them, were studying aloud; the buzz and confusion 
arising from such a concourse the reader can well imagine. 

The schools are hotbeds of Mohammedanism; both the 
instructors and the pupils are wildly fanatical ; many of them 
know the Koran well-nigh by heart, but they are wholly in- 
capable of comprehending the meaning of its simplest sen- 
tences; intolerant of those who refuse the Koran, they are 
ready to use the sword. Only one thing more is left for the 
graduates of these institutions to do to prepare them for 
their bloody work, namely, to visit Mecca, wdiich every good 
Mohammedan is expected to do once in a lifetime. 

In approaching the sacred city, the devotee strips himself 
literally stark naked ; this done, he goes out into a dark valley, 
and there, for an hour, "throws stones at the devil." He 
then returns to the sacred city to listen to a sermon against 



438 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Christians, which is well calculated to inflame his passions 
and arouse his fanaticism to the highest point. The green 
turban wound around his head is ever afterwards a sign that 
he has obtained the Prophet's favor by visiting the heavenly 
city. He now puts on the war paint; unsheathes his sword 
and flings away the scabbard; perhaps nothing would now 
more delight him than to shed the innocent blood of "Chris- 
tian dogs." In many instances pupils from such schools as 
I have described have armed themselves with sharp knives 
and clubs, and roamed the streets in search of Christians, 
and as often as they were found they were left bruised, man- 
gled and generally in a dying condition. So much for the 
cause of these unspeakable troubles. 

What shall I say as to the extent of these atrocities? The 
massacres are by no means confined to Armenians. Only 
a few weeks ago in Macedonia I saw a burning village, whose 
Christian inhabitants had just been massacred; indeed, no- 
thing but the timely arrival of the British fleet at Salonica 
prevented this slaughter from attaining fearful proportions. 
Having a personal letter from the Secretary of the American 
Navy, I obtained an interview with Lord Seymour, Admiral 
of the English Alediterranean Fleet, who was full of grave 
apprehensions at these massacres, fearing that they would 
soon become general throughout the Turkish Empire. 

In Northern Syria, a number of Christian men came to my 
tent and detailed to me some of their recent experiences. 
Only a week before, several members of their families and 
friends had been butchered. They said that if they had a 
cow, a horse, or any other personal property that a Moham- 



8T0R7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 439 

medan wanted, he, without ceremony, possessed himself of 
it. They appealed to me for help to get away from Turkey 
and come to America or any other country where they could 
live in peace and safety. They are willing to sell themselves 
into perpetual slavery if they could only thereby purchase 
these inestimable blessings. 

At Alexandretta, whither the Marblehead and the Cali- 
fornia have been sent, several members of my party had a 
narrow escape. Turkish soldiers from the interior were 
brought to this port awaiting ships to transport them to some 
field of action unknown to them. But these soldiers were 
unprovided for; they were receiving no pay from the gov- 
ernment and had no means of sustenance ; they slept on the 
ground under the broad sky; so pinched were they by hunger 
that they broke into the stores and shops and helped them- 
selves. This caused a great strife between the citizens on 
the one hand and the soldiers on the other, and soon a mob 
many hundreds strong was seen struggling in the streets and 
devastating property. It was a scene of wild confusion. Be- 
fore I knew it, several members of my party were surrounded 
by the mob; some of them were arrested, but after great 
anxiety and considerable delay, they were extricated. 

A sight enough to move a heart of adamant was to see 
twenty Armenian prisoners brought into Alexandretta, each 
with a huge chain about his neck, and all chained together. 
They were immediately thrust into prison, where no one, 
not even foreign officials, was allowed to see them. No 
doubt some of these poor, unfortunate prisoners were mur- 
dered in their chains. 



440 STOBT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

No one who studies the subject with an unbiased mind 
can, with the facts before him, come to any other conclusion 
than that the Armenians are a down-trodden, oppressed and 
long-suffering people. 

What are the emergencies of the case? The Armenian 
people are in deep need of our sympathy, our moral support 
and our fmancial aid. These people are full of self-respect, 
and are heroically struggling for freedom; though outnum- 
bered many times by their foes, they are contending for their 
religious liberty, and are bravely defending the sanctity of 
their homes and the honor of their wives and daughters with 
their lives. 

Every civilized nation, especiall}' Christian nations, should 
in this hour of despair extend to them a protecting hand. 
Some told me they did not know whence relief would come, 
but they said they believed that God in His own good time 
would provide some means of sustenance. Have they exer- 
cised this faith in vain? I think not. But the question will 
have to be answered largely by the Christian people of Am- 
erica. 

FROM DR. GRACE N. KIMBALL, VAN. 

Ah, my dear friend, what shall I say of the condition of 
things here ! I am heartsick with it all. As I write, and not 
only now, but all the day and every day, from morning to 
night, the clamor of wretched men, women and children 
comes up from below in the street, as they crowd upon us for 
help. They come by scores and hundreds, the most wretched, 
forlorn-looking people you ever saw — you never saw! 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 443 

Their story is simply that after a hard fight with every dis- 
advantage of Turicish oppression, they had managed to make 
more or less adequate provision for living in their miserable 
villages through the winter, when they were descended upon 
by armed bands of Kurds, robbed of everything, many killed 
and the rest driven forth, after being stripped even of the 
clothing on their backs, to wander in snow and mud, and 
cold, hungry and naked, often entirely barefooted, to find 
refuge and safety in the city. Many traveled for four, five 
and six days in this way. I have no idea of how many little 
babies I have seen, their hands and feet frostbitten, not to 
speak of the feet of the grown people. Many come in with 
terrible wounds from rifle or sword or club, and for all there 
is no hope and no adequate help. During the past ten days 
we have registered people from over sixty pillaged villages, 
and daily the number grows. Moreover, there are large dis- 
tricts terribly ravaged, whose inhabitants, through fear of 
the Kurds or by reason of the deep snow, cannot get here. 

Meanwhile, it has been five weeks that the entire business 
of the city has been stopped, through fear of massacre ; hence 
a large part of the city people are on the verge of starvation 

and utterly desperate. People in civili'zed countries have no 
conception of the utter poverty and misery of these people. 

It is nonsense to talk about the Armenians being in revolt 
against the Turkish government : as well talk of the sheep 
being in revolt against the wolves. A more submissive, obe- 
dient, subject people never existed. What they have suffered 
and are suffering will never be known — their desolate homes, 
their murdered fathers, and brothers, and priests, their dis- 



444 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

honored women, their children dead and thrown away in 
their flight, priests cut up in pieces and burned. One faith- 
ful old man, abbot of a monastery, was killed with horrible 
tortures, skinned, and his skin stuffed with straw and placed 
standing at the door of his monastery. Young women have 
been stripped naked, outraged, and then turned loose on the 
mountain-side in the cold and snow. A man today told us 
of his flight from his village, where he was robbed of sixteen 
oxen, six cows, thirty sheep, all his winter wheat and supplies 
and household goods, even the very clothes from the backs 
of his women and children. They fled to the lake shore, and 
there in the cold and wet, without shelter or even protection 
for decency, his son's wife gave birth to a child, and they had 
not even a rag to wrap it in. These are the things that have 
become commonplace to our ears, so constantly do we hear 
them. 



STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 44,' 



CHAPTER XV. 

STORY OF THE MASSACRES— HOW CAUSED. 

CoDTersions to Islam — Armenians Terrorized into Abandoning Chris- 
tianity — Disgrace of European Diplomacy — The Powers Look 
Calmly on the Turk's Savage Slaughter— Turkish Government 
Methods. 

In newspaper discussion and in press dispatches in this 
country the responsibiHty for Armenian massacre has been 
laid primarily on the Sultan, the Turkish government and 
the fanatical Moslems of Turkey, and, secondarily, on the 
different European powers who signed the Berlin Treaty. 
Under this view, which is the one generally accepted by those 
best able to judge, the successive massacres were begun 
under secret orders from the Sultan and continued with the 
connivance of his officers, the European powers being pre- 
vented by their divisions from preventing these appalling 
outrages or punishing them. 

Professor Edwin A. Grosvenor, of Amherst College, in a 
recent speech at a meeting of the Amherst Alumni in Boston, 
has precipitated an active and virulent discussion in the press 
of New England by declaring that the early massacres were 
deliberately fomented by Armenian revolutionary commit- 
tees, agitating from a safe distance in Europe and America. 
Their intrigues, he asserts, precipitated bloody reprisals, 
natural, and indeed inevitable, under an Oriental despotism. 
While, therefore, in Professor Grosvenor's opinion ''the di- 



446 8T0BY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

rect responsibility lies upon the Ottoman government and 
its Mussulman subjects," the massacres never would have 
taken place but for the deliberate intention and plan of sun- 
dry Armenian revolutionary committees to precipitate dis- 
turbances which would lead to European intervention. 

This view of the occurrences in Turkey and of the causes 
of the terrible misery and bloodshed which overspread a 
region far larger than this State, has the august sanction of 
the German Emperor, who spoke of the Sultan in his speech 
at the opening of the Reichstag as he might have spoken of 
any sovereign suppressing rebellious subjects. It is held and 
urged by a number of French papers, including the Temps, 
a well-informed and most able journal. It has evidently col- 
ored and influenced Lord Salisbury's policy, and he in his 
last speech denied that the Sultan had ordered any of the hor- 
rible cruelty which has destroyed all revenue over fully a 
sixth of his empire, and that one of its most fertile divisions. 

But this support and corroboration of the view of Profes- 
sor Grosvenor, for many years a resident in Constantinople 
and an erudite student of Turkish history, cannot carry con- 
viction to anyone familiar with all the facts. 'Till a few 
months ago," says Professor Grosvenor, "the Armenians 
were in a state of contemptuous tranquility. The vast ma- 
jority were even contented with their lot, for they had known 
no better." This is not true. It would have been true 
twenty, perhaps even ten, years ago. Up to twenty years 
ago Turkish despotism, great as were its evils, had come as a 
relief from the worse, because more irregular, oppression 
and plunder of local Kurdish feudal lords. Within the last 



STOKY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 447 

twenty years — it might be more accurate to say since the 
Berhn Treaty singled out the Armenians as subjects for 
reform in Turkish administration — the provinces in which 
they live have been the scene of steadily increasing cruelty, 
rapine and oppression. The Kurds, hereditary enemies and 
oppressors, were armed and let loose on the neighboring 
Armenian villages. The Turkish postofhce and police have 
begun a systematic espionage. Any letters which admitted 
of a compromising interpretation were liable to be followed 
by the arrest or domiciliary search of those to whom they 
were addressed, if Ottoman subjects. A copy of Armenian 
national verses, though legendary in character, a national 
motto among a man's papers, a patriotic schoolboy com- 
position — all these things have been enough in the past ten 
years to doom men to a lingering death in Turkish prisons 
or to banishment and slow torture in the distant oases of 
Fezzan. 

For ten years past the condition of all the vilayets which 
contain Armenians have seen the old, dull, merciless indif- 
ference of Oriental despotism edged and armed with the 
espionage, the arrests, the executions and the banishment of 
skilled European oppression. This Turkish policy has led 
to revolutionary committees among expatriated Armenians. 
With folly unspeakable, with rash temerity, in reckless dis- 
regard of all the terrible consequences, these committees be- 
gan two and three years ago to endeavor to precipitate mas- 
sacre by futile rising on the deliberate conviction that Euro- 
pean interference would follow. The massacres have come. 
Europe has not interfered. 



-148 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

But the massacres would never have come if the experience 
and experirnents of ten years had not persuaded the Turkish 
government that it could add to the individual cruelties of the 
past decade, wholesale massacre, the familiar and awful in- 
strument of Oriental rule in all time. These massacres 
once begun, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the 
orders for some of them came from Abdul Hamid, the flame 
of Moslem fanaticism and of Kurdish rapine, so long fos- 
tered by the Turkish government, broke forth. Horror un- 
speakable succeeded. In 2500 villages, men, women and 
children have been slaughtered, and the miserable survivors, 
numbering at least 250,000, have been left starving and naked 
in a winter as severe as our own. In thirteen cities whole- 
sale plunder has followed official massacre, and, while one- 
third to one-half of the adult Armenian breadwinners have 
been slaughtered in their shops and homes, the rest of the 
Arm^enian population is left destitute and starving, without 
even doors to their dwellings, every Armenian house being 
often stripped of every article of value in or on the walls in 
most cities. 

This colossal crime and this appalling misery, like all such 
terrible catastrophes, have a mingled origin, but the ultimate 
and exclusive responsibility rests with Turkish misgovern- 
ment. Into its reform Armenia cannot enter; but it is possible 
to begin widespread, general and generous relief, whose distri- 
bution has already begun in the massacre district, and which 
only needs free support and contribution in order to become 
immediately efiective. 

Covcrnment officials are now forcing the people still left 




ARMENIANS SLAIN IN THE STREETS OF BAIBURT. 



.STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 451 

alive to sign documents that they have no cause of complaint 
and no needs which are not supplied by the most benign of 
rulers. Signatures to these documents are obtained by im- 
prisonment, threats of massacre and actual bodily torture. 
In spite of all these denials, there is reason to believe that 
over 40,000 may prove to be the number killed. Two hun- 
dred and fifty thousand of the survivors are in danger of per- 
ishing unless foreign aid reaches them, and as many more 
have been entirely mipoverished. An unknown number of 
women and children have been carried of¥ by the Turks and 
Kurds. 

Of the devastated region, the province of Harpoot has suf- 
fered the most. Sivas, Bitlis and Van come next, and then 
Erzeroum and Diarbekir. In the provinces of Trebizond, 
Angora, Aleppo and Adana the devastation was not syste- 
matic, as in the other six provinces to which the reform 
scheme applied. A Turk just in from the province of Sivas 
has told us of villages through which he passed where none 
of the people had any clothing, but were huddled in empty 
houses, without fuel or bedding, sitting on heaps of half- 
burned straw, with pieces of sacking tied about the waist. 
This was a region 4000 feet above sea level, where winter 
is comparable to New York. The rule observed throughout 
was to strip every house that was plundered, and destroy all 
that could not be carried away. All the cattle and sheep 
were carried off, shops were ruined and artisans' tools taken 
away or broken up. The need of aiding those who live 
through the winter to make a new start is a pressing one. 

The relief thus far has been only in the large cities and to 



452 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

the refugees who have flocked in from the villages. The 
food supply in the country is sufhcient, if funds were in hand 
to buy it, and two cents a day will keep a man alive. There 
is no need of bringing food to Turkey from outside. In 
many places the people are dying from exposure quite as 
much as from actual starvation. The plunderers are willing 
to sell ofif the stolen goods at reduced rates, so that at pres- 
ent all that is needed can be had on the ground. 

It is no easy task to save some of the Armenians from 
death, but the people of America are able and wilHng to give 
help, and there are facilities for its prompt and faithful dis- 
tribution. There cannot be a more worthy cause. 

APPEAL BY THE BISHOPS. 

Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United 
States who sent a petition to President Cleveland, asking 
that the government interfere in saving the Christian Arme- 
nians from continued massacre at the hands of the Turks, 
forwarded to the powers of Europe and to the Archbishop of 
Canterbury a memorial, praying that immediate measures 
be adopted to compel the Turks to cease from slaughter and 
persecution. 

At the time the petition was sent to President Cleveland, 
the State Department was consulted as to the best procedure 
to be followed in order that the petition should reach the eye 
of the various European potentates to whom it was to be ad- 
dressed. On the advice of the State Department, the several 
memorials were forwarded addressed to the Ministers of 



STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMEXIA. 453 

Foreign Affairs of France, Germany, Austria and Russia. 
At the same time in which the letter was dispatched to Presi- 
dent Cleveland, a letter was sent to the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, as head of the EngHsh Church. Notice of the recep- 
tion of the letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury has already 
been received. 



SLAUGHTER OF ARMENIANS BY THE TURKS SHOULD BE 
STOPPED. 

This action thus taken by the Bishops of the Episcopal 
Church in behalf of Armenia is the result of a letter sent to 
each of the Bishops by the Right Rev. John Williams, D. D., 
Bishop of Connecticut, and presiding Bishop, inclosing a 
circular showing the condition of affairs in Turkey. The 
circular reads : 

As is now generally known, during the months of October 
and November, the Mussulman population of Eastern Tur- 
key, in many places actively aided by Ottoman troops, put 
to death from 30,000 to 40,000 Gregorian and Protestant Ar- 
menians. The killed were chiefly males, and included a con- 
siderable portion of the educated and influential classes in 
the six provinces named in the reform scheme, namely, the 
provinces of Erzeroum, Bitlis, Van, Diarbekir, Harpoot and 
Sivas. A part of the whole num.ber massacred were killed 
in the cities of Trebizond, Aintab, Marash, Ourfa and Cae- 
sarea, which are outside the provinces named above. The 
massacres were accompanied by pillage on such a scale that 
nearly the whole Armenian agricultural population in the 
villages and the greater part of the Armenian traders and ar- 
tisans in the cities and towns of the provinces and districts 
named above have been plundered of money, goods, food 
supplies, clothing, implements, cattle and sheep, their houses 
being destroyed and themselves reduced to abject want. 

The purpose of this paper is to invite the attention of the 



454 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Christian world to a progressive aggravation of this awful 
crime which has been brought to light since the middle of 
November. 

In a territory some 60,000 miles in area an effort has been 
and is now being made to extinguish Christianity among the 
Armenian race, by destroying church edifices, killing the 
clergy, and forcing the surviving micmbers of their flocks in 
all places where foreign consuls are not present to report the 
facts to become Mohammedans. It now seems probable that 
a large part of those who have been killed in the country dis- 
tricts are martyrs, who have refused life at the price of deny- 
ing their Lord. Multitudes are now being singly ap- 
proached and put under pressure of the most awful threats if 
they continue to refuse to deny the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The Arm.enian Church, for centuries the largest and most 
sturdy of the Asiatic Christian churches, has made great 
progress in moral, intellectual and spiritual life. Its mem- 
bers have been nursed and fed upon the Bible more than 
those of either of the other branches of the Eastern Church. 
This ancient Church is now in the throes of annihilation. Un- 
less Christendom acts instantly and overwhelmingly to ar- 
rest this infamy, this century of enlightment will be marked 
in history as the one in which a Christian people was de- 
stroyed with the full knowledge and before the eyes of Chris- 
tendom, no Christian nation being sufhciently moved by the 
spectacle to lift a hand to prevent it. 

Only from a few places comparatively has the cry of the 
sufferers been heard. From such instances, however, a 
slight idea of the ferocity of this attack upon Christianity in 
Turkey can be gained. It will be noticed that wherever a 
foreign consul is established these things have not been car- 
ried to the extent now revealed, for a consul in Turkey is 
like a single policeman preserving the public order. It must 
be observed, also, and emphasized that the same hand which 
beckons to Europe to wait and see if reforms will not be car- 
ried out pushes On its work and screens it from the eyes of for- 
eign observers. Hence the facts which have come to light 
represent only a small part of the horrors which have oc- 
curred. 



STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 455 

EUROPEAN POWERS ASKED " TO ACT. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the AngHcan 
Church, the American Bishops have thus addressed: 

To the Most Reverend His Grace the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury : 

My Lord Archbishop : We, Bishops of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church in the United States of America, having learned 
with deep sorrow the deplorable and continuous persecution 
of our fellow-Christians in Asiatic Turkey, do hereby appeal 
to your Grace in their behalf. Is it not possible for us, laying 
aside at this crisis all questions political, international or 
commercial, to rise to the higher plane of earnest, sympa- 
thetic action, that a stop may be put to the horrible massacre 
of Armenian Christians? "If one member suffer, all the 
members suffer with it." It is evident from a careful analy- 
sis of the causes and reasons of this determined assault, that 
the real object of it is the destruction of the Church in Ar- 
menia by the slaying of all who refuse to give allegiance to 
Islam. It is, therefore, a distinctly religious persecution; 
and the number of martyrs already sacrificed is probably 
larger than in any of the persecutions of the early Church. It 
would seem, considering the ferocity of the cruel attack upon 
our brethren in Armenia, the awful suffering they are endur- 
ing, the fact that the offer is made to these Christians that 
their lives shall be spared if they renounce their faith— that a 
crusade supported by Christians the world over would be 
truly warranted. 

We therefore respectfully and lovingly plead with your 
Grace that, for Christ's sake, for the sake of His religion, you 
interpose the weight of your office and influence to succor 
and defend this afflicted and persecuted branch of the Chris- 
tian Church. May we not ask that the great Church of Eng- 
land, through her episcopate, shall take decisive action — that 
our suffering fellow-Christians may find not only ready sym- 
pathy, but speedy deliverance from their foes? 



45G i^TOBY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

THE ARCHBISHOP OP CANTERBURY URGED TO BRING TO 
BEAR THE INFLUENCE OP THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 

In addition to the letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
petitions have been sent to the President of the French Re- 
pubHc, the Emperors of Germany and Austria and to the 
Czar of Russia. Following is the letter to the Czar: 

To His Imperial Majesty, Nicholas II, Czar of all the 
Russias: 

Sire: We, Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
the United States of America, most respectfully petition your 
Imperial Majesty, as the head of the Christian Church in 
Russia, in behalf of your and our fellow-Christians, the Ar- 
menians. They have been subjected to the most cruel per- 
secution by the Turks, and, as we are well informed, under 
the express orders of the Turkish government, because they 
are Christians. Tens of thousands have been massacred 
outright, after having refused to renounce Christ and accept 
Islam, and some hundreds of thousands are at this moment 
in utter want and destitution, or even fugitives in the moun- 
tains, perishing by cold and hunger, for the same cause. We 
believe the evidence to be conclusive that the purpose of the 
Turkish government is to exterminate the Armenians as a 
Christian people, at least in those interior portions of Ana- 
tolia and Armenia where there are no foreign consuls. We 
implore you, in Christ's name^, to come to the aid of our per- 
secuted brethren. Even under the most bloody persecutions 
among the Roman emperors such an atrocious and wholesale 
massacre was never perpetrated; and no persecution of the 
early Church reckoned so many martyrs for Christ's sake. 
And shall the Christian world of the end of the nineteenth 
century stand carelessly by and see a Christian community 
utterly exterminated by the infidels? Our differences of 
doctrine are as nothing in the presence of a crisis like this. 
All we, who profess and call ourselves Christians, must place 
the rescue of hundreds of thousands of our fellow-Christians 
from death, or what is worse than death, above all questions 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 459 

of mere material or national advantage. It is not a question 
of policy, but of Christianity, and even of common humanity. 
For Christ's sake save our brothers from death and rescue a 
Christian community from extinction. In this moment all 
else should count as nothing in comparison with this. God 
grant that your Imperial Majesty, whom may God ever 
guard and guide, may heed our heartfelt cry, for Christ's 
sake. Amen. 

The letters to the Emperor of Germany and the Emperor 
of Austria and the President of the French Repubhc are 
similar to that addressed to the Czar of Russia. The letters 
have been signed by sixty-two Bishops of the Church in this 
country. 

Authentic reports have been received from the districts of 
Spargered, Mamardank, Khizan and Gargar, in the Bitlis 
Mlayet, to the effect that a wholesale conversion of the Ar- 
menian population to the ranks of Islam has taken place 
there. During the recent reign of terror several vSheikhs of 
Khiza, assisted by their hordes of fanatical followers, among 
them at least one officer known to the writer, ravaged that 
whole region, and simply terrorized the helpless people into 
declaring their faith in Mohammed. First of all, they mur- 
dered a certain Sahag A^antabed, as true and brave a man as 
ever lived, thus cutting off the last hope the people had. They 
flayed the body, filled the skin with straw and hung it on a 
tree in front of the beautiful monastery which for twenty-six 
years he had occupied and defended at the daily risk of his 
life. Some, at least (the number is not known), followed his 
noble example and surrendered their lives instead of their 
Christian faith. The official figures in the possession of an 
ecclesiastic prelate of these districts gives the number of con- 



460 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

verts to Islam as 800 families, which would mean at least 
4000 individuals. 

THE DISGRACE OF EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY. 

News of this same grave character comes from Harpoot, 
whence it was least expected, also from Sert and other places. 

For twelve months past those in the interior have been 
faithfully sending their warnings and urging immediate and 
effective action, but evidently to no purpose. The represen- 
tative diplomats of Constantinople no doubt thought they 
understood their own business, and so they did, if it was their 
intention to play the leading parts in the most awful tragedy 
which the nineteenth century has witnessed. If the massa- 
creing of 50,000 people, the forcible conversion of thousands 
more to Islam, and the reducing of nearly 3,000,000 to the 
verge of beggary, is the result of diplomacy (and who will 
deny that it is?), then God spare the world, and especially 
Turkey, of diplomats. It is the Berlin Treaty and the Anglo- 
France-Russian farce of 1895 which has ruined the Chris- 
tians of Turkey. The integrity of the Christian powers 
stands compromised in the eyes of all Oriental Christendom. 
It is more than humiliating to watch the mighty nations of 
Europe bestowing their tenderest solicitude on this most 
putrid government. The stench which has filled the whole 
world seems not in the least to ofifend their political nostrils. 
How long is the sense of humanity, nay, of decency, to be 
thus outraged? The tendency now is to think the Turks 
have done their worst and that anxiety may be suspended; 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 461 

but let it be known that, as long as Ottoman rule endures, 
they will not rest content until they have either converted or 
massacred every Christian in the country. The events of the 
past three months have given them more encouragement 
than they have had since the day when the Prophet bran- 
dished his sword over the heads of the Jews in Arabia. Is 
Europe still going to look calmly on while the Turks savagely 
slaughters or converts the Christians of this land? Is there 
no conscience, no mercy in the heart of civilized Christen- 
dom? If the Christians of this unhappy land are doomed 
by the decree of Europe, let at least one act of justice be 
done them by telling them their fate, that they may prepare 
themselves for the worst. 

JAMES BRICE ON ARMENIA. 

There is a still more painful subject on which I must speak 
freely to you. For many years in succession I have de- 
scribed to you the sufferings of the Armenian Christians, 
have pointed out England's responsibilities, and have re- 
peated to you the predictions of persons who knew the East 
thoroughly, that before long some massacre would ensue 
sufficient to endanger the peace of the whole East and to 
compel the intervention of the Europeans Power. These 
predictions have been only too completely fulfilled. The 
massacre of Sassun, an unprovoked massacre, and part of a 
deliberate schemiC for the extermination of the Christian pop- 
ulation, was perpetrated on a community of simple moun- 
taineers, the flov/er of what remained of the Armenian race. 



462 STORY OF TURKEY AAD ARMIJNIA. 

Lord Roseberry's government spoke to the Sultan in the 
very strongest terms, pressing the need for prompt and 
sweeping reforms and for the punishment of the guilty, and 
they endeavored to get Russia and France to join with them. 
The Turks, of course, resisted, never expressing the slightest 
regret or remorse for the slaughter, while Russia and France 
gave a somewhat qualified support, hesitating to adopt what 
we thought even the irreducible minimum of reforms. 

We were still arguing with them and pressing the Sultan 
when we quitted office last June. The time had not then yet 
arrived for proceeding to coerce the Turks — though it was 
plain that it must soon have arrived — because it was deemed 
proper first to exhaust the resources of remonstance and 
warning, and if possible to carry Russia and France along 
with us. When Parliament opened last August, Lord Salis- 
bury addressed to the Turks grave words, which were taken 
by the country as a pledge that England would do everything 
she could to secure protection for the Eastern Christians. He 
repeated this pledge in still stronger and clearer terms in his 
Guildhall speech. By that time fresh massacres had begun. 
Massacres have gone on ever since. They have been se- 
cretly planned or publicly organized by the Turkish govern- 
ment, and either permitted or actually carried out by Turkish 
troops; tens of thousands — some accounts seem to put the 
number above 150,000 — of Christians have been slain. Prob- 
ably as many more have been made homeless, and are dying 
of famine. Some have sought to escape death by renouncing 
their religion. Recently we heard of a massacre at Orfah in 
which 2000 were killed. And now the hardy mountaineers 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 463 

of Zeitun are in danger of a similar fate unless — so the intel- 
ligence runs — they surrender their leaders to the mercy of 
the Turks. With the experience they have of Turkish 
mercy, and the recollection of the slaughter at Sassun, when 
the men, women and children who surrendered were massa- 
creed in cold blood, how can they be expected to give up their 
arms? We may hear any day of a Zeitun massacre surpass- 
ing those of the last few months. 

And while these things go on, Britain does nothing. Sir 
M. Hicks-Beach says we have no special responsibility, for- 
getting the Anglo-Turkish convention, forgetting that it was 
England that set aside the treaty of San Stefano, by which 
Russia had undertaken to protect the Armenians, and Brit- 
ain that substituted for that treaty the Treaty of Berlin, in 
whose 6 1 St article our obligation stands plainly written, and 
Mr. Arthur Balfour, while deploring the position, offers no 
consolation except that "the concert of Europe has been 
maintained." Six Powers, anyone of which could, by mov- 
ing a few ironclads, bring the Turk to his knees and stop the 
massacres, stand helplessly while massacres go on far worse 
than those which desolated Armenia in the twelfth century, 
or in those later days when the Turk, now so feeble, except 
for massacre, was the terror of all Christendom. The con- 
cert of Europe is maintained! Six strong men stand by 
while a ruffian tortures and despatches the victim they have 
pledged themselves to protect. And it is owing to Britain 
more than to any other Powder that the Turkish government 
has lived on to do its hideous work, for it was Britain that 
saved that government in the days of the Crimean war; 



464 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Britain that in 1878 deprived the Armenians of the protec- 
tion which Russia had then promised. 

So now Britain is bound, above all the other Powers, to 
come to the rescue of these victims of ferocity and fanaticism. 
You may ask whether, for the sake of this rescue, we ought 
to run the risk of a European war? Certainly no such risk 
ought to be, or need be, incurred. I speak under the disad- 
vantage of not knowing what communications have passed 
since June. But everything seems to indicate that Russia 
and France are reluctant to support so drastic a scheme of 
reform as our government deem needed, and reluctant also 
to resort to that coercion by which alone the acceptance and 
practical application of any reforms can be secured. What, 
then, ought our course to be? To ask Russia and France 
whether they will resist the application to the Turks of Brit- 
ish coercion, whether in fact they will consider such applica- 
tion to be a casus belli? That they will refuse to allow us to 
apply coercion can scarcely be expected. If they do refuse, 
that is to say, if they will neither help us to stop the massacres 
nor suffer us to stop them alone, they will make themselves 
responsible for the present horrors, and our hands will hence- 
forth be clean. If they do not refuse, there are several ways 
and places in which we can soon bring the Turk to reason — 
Smyrna is one and the Red Sea is another — without danger 
of further complications. Should the ministry, however, re- 
ject this course — and of course there are facts within their 
knowledge which they have not disclosed to us — then only 
one other course seems to remain, that of inviting Russia 
herself to restore peace in the Armenian provinces as the 
mandatory of Europe. 



STORY OF TURKEY Al^D ARMENIA. 465 

TURKISH GOVERNMENT METHODS. 

The Turkish government is doing its best to make a good 
appearance to Europe, and one of its latest moves has been 
to appoint Muavins (assistants) to the governors of the pro- 
inces. This office is not a new creation, but had been abol- 
ished some ten years ago. Christian Muavins have been 
appointed to all the six provinces, one to each province in 
Roumelia except Adrianople, and Moslem Muavins to Aldin, 
Aleppo and Angora. 

Without going into the question whether a Christian as- 
sistant ever has influence with a Moslem governor, little real 
change is expected to be accomphshed by them. 

It may be remembered that six judicial inspectors were 
appointed under the reforms, one Moslem and one Christian 
for each province. None of these has left Constantinople, 
and now it is announced that Dikran Bey, one of these in- 
spectors for Anatolia, has been appointed Procureur-General 
for Beirout. One more indication of the seriousness of the 
reform movement. 

Word comes from Erzeroum that the government, under 
the eye of Shakir Pasha, is distributwrg" flour to the destitute, 
and this flour is of such a sort that it has brought on an epi- 
demic of sickness. 

THE SITUATION AT BITLIS AND ELSEWHERE. 

At Bitlis the local authorities are still annoying the mis- 
sionaries by petty acts. They wish to arrest their servants, 
and imply rather than say that the missionaries are dangerous 



466 STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

characters. Mr. Terrell has denounced the calumnies 
against Mr. Knapp as Hes. At Van everything is quite still, 
but there is a probability that some effort will be made to 
bring low the population there. Mr. Terrell has advised the 
removal of ladies from that place, in which advice he is sup- 
ported by the missionaries here. 

At Erzeroum the exile of the ArmeniaH Bishop has re- 
moved one excuse for the Moslems to make trouble. There 
seems to have been no reason for the exile, save in the fact 
that the man was an able man. About 1500 persons are 
being fed. The Porte objects to giving Mr. Barnum a pass 
to go to Erzeroum, as was desired for the support and com- 
fort of Mr. Chambers. 

Harpoot is still in danger of new massacres. The pres- 
sure for conversions under threat is still very great. Prob- 
ably 15,000 persons in the field have accepted the new re- 
ligion. 

Mr. Dewey has returned from Mosul to Mardin in safety, 
with guards furnished by the government. Mr. Ainslie asks 
if the government has the right to prevent his touring. The 
answer is, that the right of travel is not questioned, but only 
its expediency at this time. 

Sivas reports the chapel as packed in the first week of 
prayer. Mrs. Perry has the cordial support of the V^ali in her 
visit to Guerun. At Marsovan appearances are better. Con- 
sul Jewett has been there and is coming to Constantinople 
this week for consultation. AppHcation has been made for 
the Red Cross to distribute aid, but the Porte objects. The 
question is still under discussion. The English embassy has 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 4G7 

the opinion that the missionaries can do all that is needed in 
the way of aid without assistance. 

The Roman Catholics here and in other places are promis- 
ing Armenians full protection if they will become Catholic. 
If France is a party to this, the matter is one for indignation, 
since it implies an ability to give protection, and a refusal to 
use the ability for .purely selfish reasons. 

THE HORRORS OF CAESARIA. 

In the district between Guerun and Ghemerig twenty- 
seven Armenian villages are pillaged and burned. Thirteen 
villages, five or six hours distant from Ghemezek, such as 
Dendil, Boorhan, Ilkmen, Karageet, LisanH, Kyapoonar, 
etc., are likewise plundered and ruined. Boorhsm was at- 
tacked five times and Tekmen seven times. The raiders car- 
ried the plunder from Dendil for three days continuously. 
No clothes, no bedding, no kitchen utensils, and nothing to 
eat are left to the surviving villagers. They had to live on 
herbs, which they cooked in the empty tins of the petroleum 
used by the enemy to burn their houses. In many villages 
the contents of granaries which the plunderers could not 
carry away were spoiled with petroleum and filth, so as to 
make it uneatable. In the district of Tonnooz the Armenian 
villages, especially Kantavoz, Kazmakara and Patriu, were 
pillaged and burned, and male inhabitants were butchered 
and young women were ravished. Some of the villages were 
entirely ruined. No place inhabited by Armenians in this 
district has escaped except Talas and Ghemenek. In the 



408 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

latter place the local Turks joined the Armenians to drive 
back the raiders, who, however, have carried away about 
looo sheep and cattle and about lOO loads of wheat and flour. 

A BISHOP'S STATEMENT. 

The Bishop of Caesaria gives the following figures as the 
result of the pillage and massacre of October 30 in that city: 
Number of killed, 348; wounded, 190; number of young 
brides and unmarried girls outraged, 50; houses burned, 27; 
houses plundered, 447; shops pillaged, 250. Many parents, 
seeing their violated daughters brought back, have ex- 
claimed: "We would that this, our child, also had been 
among those who fell by the sword, rather than to be brought 
back to us in this condition." No Christian as yet, Arme- 
nian or Greek, dares to open his shop in the city of Caesaria, 
despite the assurances the authorities are giving to the people 
that the plundered goods will be found and brought back to 
their owners. Judging from the wounded, it appears that 
all kinds of weapons and instruments were used, such as 
axes, sickles, meat axes, etc. 

Mr. Avedis Yeretzian, a medical doctor and pastor, his 
wife, eldest son and brother-in-law were ruthlessly butchered 
and thrown into the flames of their burning house because 
they resisted the raiders. 

FEROCITY OF THE TURKS. 

In order to give an idea of the ferocity shown by the Turk- 
ish mob, the following incidents may serve as examples: The 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 469 

wife of a Turkish military captain happened to be looking 
from a window w^hen the massacres were going on in the 
city. She was so much affected by the scenes that she lost 
her head, and ever since that day her only words have been, 
"O savage Turks! O beastly Turks!" 

In one house there were four young women. The Turks 
attacked the house and carried away two, leaving the other 
two to be carried away next time. The two young women, 
seeing that there was no way of escape, burned the taudir 
(Oriental oven dug in the floor of the room) very hot and 
threw themselves into the flames and were burned alive. The 
raiders, coming back, were very much disappointed to find 
them dead. 

From some places in the interior no letters are sent out 
unless wTitten in Turkish by the pubHc scribes. This is a 
censorship not yet ventured in other countries. 

TURKEY'S TERROR RECORD. 

The work of making out the statistics about the countless 
smaller villages goes on slowly, but shows that the worst has 
not been realized. A careful list of those killed at Adaiman, 
near Aintab, shows the number to have been 1050, but few of 
whom were women and children. Soldiers were called out 
after three days' work was done, and are now protecting 
Christians. » 

Two strong houses in Adaiman were filled with the promi- 
nent and wealthier class of Christians, who, thus inclosed, 
resisted attacks. The buildings were undermined and fired 



470 . STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

with kerosene and cotton, and a general holocaust was the 
result. Over thirty persons were in each dwelling. Both 
houses contained members of the local governing board. Of 
the four churches, two were ruined and two burned. It will 
be noticed in all these accounts that buildings were often 
spared through fear that the fire might be communicated to 
Moslem dwellings. 

A large number of the villagers had fled for safety into 
Furnez, near Marash, and finally there was a great slaughter 
of everybody in Furnez itself, no authentic details of which 
can be given, but some 300 women and children were brought 
to Marash, where they w^ere stowed at first in the Third Prot- 
estant Church and afterward divided among the committees 
of the city, seventy-five falling to the Protestants, who re- 
ceived them into their already impoverished homes. At 
Marash the rehef is given at the rate of four cents a head each 
week. 

ENFORCED TELEGRAMS TO SULTAN. 

Just before the last massacre at Oorfa, the Christians there 
paid $20 for the government to send two telegrams to Con- 
stantinople, expressing their thanks and love to the Sultan. 
These telegrams had been wrung out of them by the threat, 
"If you do not sign you are rebels." 

A college graduate, who a few years ago was put into the 
Marash prison, used often to say that no further experience 
was needed to set before one a complete idea of hell. There 
is more comfort in hundreds of the stables in that city than in 
this overcrowded receptacle of hundreds of men, who are 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMEXIA. 471 

thrown into it with or without reason, and many of whom are 
kept in there without trial for months. 

Preachers, priests, educated men and the lowest criminals 
are put together almost as closely as cattle in a freight train. 
Xo food is ever given to them by the authorities, but the 
friends of each one nuist l)ring it day by day. It first goes 
into the hands of the Turkish guards, who eat as much of it 
as they wish, and then give to their friends, whom the govern- 
ment crowds upon the prisoners for support, and the part 
remaining is handed over to the prisoners. 

During the late disturbances and awful massacre of 650 
men, not a ^loslem was arrested, but Christians were seized 
without a show of reason, and there they continue in that 
"Black Hole of Calcutta." month after month, without any 
prospect of trial, and still less of any show of justice when 
they are examined. The fact that a man is a human being 
seems to have no place in the criminal code of the land, and 
yet an educated Turk can discourse as intelligently upon the 
humanity that is common to man as an educated European. 

DETAILS OF THE HORRORS OF IMPRISONMENT AT MARASH. 

The following communication is directly from a man who 
has been lying in that hell-hole for over a month, and is no 
more worthy of such treatment than thousands of the 
readers of this letter. It is given as sent, with the exception 
of a few w^ords of explanation interspersed to make it fully 
intelligible to Occidental readers : 

Our condition in prison passes description. Only he who 



472 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

sees can understand it. Most of the occupants of every 
room are Christians, but many are Moslems. Life would be 
a shade more tolerable if the subject race were not compelled 
thus to associate with the dominant race, whose temper, 
tastes and habits are so different. Into one small room 
twenty persons are crowded. 

Except for a few Moslems, not a single person has room 
enough on the bare floor to stretch out and lie down. For 
fully sixteen hours in the night the doors of the rooms are all 
locked. In one of these small rooms, sometimes twenty 
cigarettes are smoking at once. Out of the small amount of 
food which reaches us, the Christians are obliged to feed the 
Moslems confined there. Instead of eating themselves, the 
Christians are compelled to supply food to these men. The 
oppression of the dominant race continues even here. It is 
a tyranny within a tyranny. In every room there are a few 
Aghas or principal Moslems, and every Christian must con- 
tribute money to their lordships. Those who withhold such 
contributions are not allowed to sit down. 

Among the inmates of the prison are twenty or thirty 
rowdies and bullies, under whom the Christians must serve 
as menial slaves. There is no respect, no pity. The horrible 
blasphemies cannot be described. There is no book, no 
Bible, no work, no sleep. Every man is covered with the 
swarming vermin with which the unwashed rooms of the 
prison teem. To clean ourselves is impossible. Now and 
then the rumor sweeps through the prison that we are all to 
be put to death, and all our hearts melt like water. 

The terrible darkness of the night, the curses and stripes 
inflicted from time to time, cause us to live in the valley of the 
shadow of death. It is a living grave, a visible hell, a world 
without God. Out of this throng of prisoners more than a 
hundred are in daily suffering from the gnawings of hunger 
and from nakedness, but there is no one to pity. Many pray- 
ing men are tempted to cease praying, many are tempted to 
change over to the Moslem faith. In truth, all of us are 
dumb; what we say we know not. We are wearied of the 
long silence; our eyes are strained with watching, our bones 
ache, our prayers are despised by the revilers. Night is not 
night and day is not day. Our grief is our food, our sleep is 



8T0R7 OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA, 473 

weeping. For how long a time must we cry? Oh, Lord, 
wilt Thou hide Thyself forever? How long will Thy anger 
burn like fire? And yet some of us are saying: "Though He 
slay me, yet will I trust in Him." 

When will the Christian statesmen and philanthropists of 
the world find a way to cleanse these Augean stables all over 
Turkey? Long centuries cry out for redress. 



CONFESSIONS OF SEDITION EXTORTED BY TORTURE. 

Within a month the following incidents have occurred : A 
Christian confined in this prison was ordered to receive 400 
stripes. After 300 had been inflicted he cried out that he 
could endure no more or he must die. An officer then pre- 
sented to him a paper with the names of fifty Christians in 
the city who were accused therein of sedition. 

In his great agony he signed it, and this is to be used to 
incriminate others, wholly regardless of their guilt or inno- 
cence. The other victim of unendurable stripes was an old 
man. W^hen he could endure no more of this inhuman 
treatment, he also was asked to sign a paper implicating 
others indiscriminately. 

Can anyone living in a free country for a moment under- 
stand what it is to live under such a government? There is 
a great flourish just at present over the reforms that are being 
instituted in certain parts of this land. No resident of this 
country can have confidence in the superficial operations. 
What will you do with a land where lying is the simplest of 
mental exercises, and where ho one was ever known to blush 
over it if exposed? 



474 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMKSIA. 

TURKS LOST AT ZEITOIN. 

In Spite of the report spread abroad by the Turkish govern- 
ment regarding the attack on Zeitoun, it has not been a suc- 
cess. The Zeitounhs, fighting against superior numbers, 
were favored by their impregnable position and by the winter 
season. The facts that the Turks were able to close in to the 
Hot Springs, five miles from Zeitoun on the east, and at least 
to Furnuz, eight miles from Zeitoun on the west, over roads 
which are supposed to be impassable during the winter, 
seems to show that the Zeitounlis were not strong enough to 
defend the approaches. 

Zeitoun lies in a deep valley, and there are four roads that 
lead into it. One-is directly over the mountains from Marash 
to the south. This road is considered impassable in winter, 
and has to cross the Jihan river by a bridge about six hours 
from Zeitoun. The second road leads from the direction of 
Geben on the southwest. This is the usual winter road from 
Marash, and crosses the Jihan only four hours out of ]Marash. 
The third leads from Guksun on the northwest and passes 
through Furnuz three hours directly west of Zeitoun. The 
fourth road leads from Albostan and the rugged northeast 
country and passes through the Hot Springs about two 
hours east of Zeitoun. 

TEX THOUSAND SAID TO HAVE BEEN SLAIN IN THE HOT 
SPRINGS FIGHT. 

It will be remembered that the plan of attack was to ap- 
proach Zeitoun with the army in three divisions, closing in 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 475 

from Marash, Geben and Guksun. Of these three roads, the 
mountain road from Marash would be the easiest to defend, 
because, besides the bridge over the Jihan, there is a high, 
narrow gorge three hours from Zeitoun at the point where the 
city is first visible. The road from Guksun is also easily de- 
fended, and the 3000 men concentrated at Guksun seem to 
have taken little part in the attack. The Geben division of 
5000 men, weakened by sickness, moved forward slowly, and 
the main advance was made from Marash over the most diffi- 
cult road of all. It is possible that, as once reported, the 
bridge across the Jihan, four hours from Marash, had been 
destroyed and the main army of about 10,000 men could not 
take the winter road. 

The Zeitounlis, at the very commencement, had succeeded, 
by cutting off the water supply, and, after an attack of sixty 
hours, in capturing the barracks of the city, and the Turkish 
reports say that the Zeitounlis held 593 prisoners. It was 
in this engagement that the two sons of Babik, once the chief 
of the Zeitounlis, were killed (Bablik himself died several 
years ago, confessing on his deathbed that his death was due 
to a kerosene can of whiskey which he had drunk the night 
before. 

Although the Turks claim to have captured the barracks 
commanding Zeitoun, the fact that the battle took place at 
Hot Springs, five miles east of the city, makes it look as 
though only the .heights had been taken, and not the bar- 
racks, which are but one-quarter of a mile from Zeitoun. The 
tributary of the Jihan, which passes through Hot Springs 
from Zeitoun, is a dry bed in summer, but at this season of the 



47G STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

year it is a rushing, unfordable torrent, and is crossed by a 
stone bridge. 

The ZeitounHs made a partial stand at the bridge, and 
slowly withdrew up the steep road, followed by almost the 
entire Turkish army. When most of the Turkish army had 
crossed, the bridge was suddenly blown up, and the Zeitoun- 
Hs, from the precipitous banks of the stream, rained down 
bullets and rocks. They had prepared small mines of dy- 
namite down in the valley, and they may have had also dyna- 
mite bombs. The Turkish account is "fire burst out from 
the air or from the ground, and destroyed the army." 

The defeat of the army was complete. Since it had not got 
into Zeitoun, there was no place where it could be sheltered; 
it was obHged to resign all it had captured and retreat to Ma- 
rash. The only report from Marash which estimates the 
killed gives the Turkish losses as 10,000, although this num- 
ber does not seem possible. 

What was left of the army went back into Marash over the 
direct Zeitoun road the 30th and 31st of December. The 
wounded were put into some of the Christian churches. The 
Zeitounlis are said to have enough provisions to last until 
July. Whatever may be the result of the mediation, no fur- 
ther attack can be made until after March. Whether the de- 
tachment of the Turkish army, which had reached Furnuz, 
on the west, has tried to hold its position has not yet been 
learned. 

Regarding the numerical strength of the Zeitounlis, noth- 
ing can be said with certainty. At the start their success in 
taking four or five hundred prisoners gave an idea of great 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 477 

strength. If, however, they were able to cut off the water 
supply, this fact would be of less significauce, and in the 
battle of Hot Springs the rebel leaders had every advantage 
of position and science. There is no doubt that there are 
wise heads in command at Zeitoun. 

That the Turks are waging a war of extermination against 
Zeitoun is shown by their treatment of the villages around. 
Furnuz is situated about nine miles east of Zeitoun, and with 
the approach of the Turkish army, the Christians had fled 
into Furnuz from the surrounding villages, until finally 
there were at least 4000 people crowded into the town. They 
had watchers out on the approaches to give warning of the 
arrival of the Turkish army, with the intention of fleeing to 
Zeitoun. In some way the Turkish army eluded those 
watchers and surrounded the town by night, so that the un- 
fortunate Christians awoke to find a cordon around them. 

BRUTAL TREATMENT OF PRISONERS. 

Three hundred women and children were brought by the 
soldiers to Marash. They say that all the rest were killed. 
This two days' winter journey over the snow was especially 
hard on the children. Many of them dropped down on the 
way from exhaustion and were left to die. The soldiers 
would not permit the mothers to delay the march. On reach- 
ing Marash, they were crowded into the Third Protestant 
Church, and only with the greatest difficulty did a Bible 
woman push past the guard to get among them. 

She found many Catholics, and the Jesuits of Marash 



478 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

came forward to do their share of the relief work. Many of 
the orphans were adopted, and the whole 300 were soon dis- 
tributed among the already impoverished homes of the Chris- 
tians. 

DESTITUTION IN MARASH. 

One Christian in Marash took thirteen of these Furnuz 
refugees into his yard, where he was living with his wife and 
several children, one three days old, on the ground. Their 
house and all their clothing, except what they had on, had 
been lost, and there were no clothes for the newcomers. The 
father went to the Americans, who made up a little bundle of 
clothing, and he started home. But, as he returned, even 
that little bundle was taken from him by the soldiers. 

MASSACRE IN ERZEROUM. 

The following description of the massacre at Erzeroum, 
which appeared in the London Times, November 16, 1895, 
is selected, because it is written by an eye-witness : 

On October 30, at noon, I was at lunch, when our Arme- 
nian neighbors, with blanched faces, rushed into the hall and 
breathlessly said, "They've commenced firing in the market." 
I knew^ what this meant, for a struggle had been expected 
every day between the Christians and Mussulmans. We 
ran to the balcony and heard rifle and revolver shots in every 
direction, near and far. The neighboring Armenian women 
with their children came flocking into the American mission 
building, where I was stopping. This building, being much 



STORY OF TURKEY A^D ARMENIA. 479 

larger and stronger than the native houses, was looked on 
as a castle, and then, too, being a residence of foreigners, the 
people felt safer. But soon the house was simply jammed 
with two hundred and twenty-five women and children and 
about seventy-five men. Among these latter were six rifles 
and about twenty revolvers, with about looo rounds of am- 
munition in all. One of these men, a young fellow named 
Aram, came running to the mission hotly pursued by Turks 
with revolvers, which they fired, but fortunately he got oi¥ 
without a scratch. 

I went up to the roof of the building and saw the mob and 
soldiers running pell-mell towards the market, firing right 
and left into the houses on their route, from a few of which 
the fire was returned. The whizzing of bullets induced me 
to go below, for the Turks and Armenians were popping 
away at any fair mark they could find. Soon Mv. Chambers, 
the American missionary, returned. We had been anx- 
iously awaiting him. He had been up to the postoffice. On 
his way back through the long, straggling market he noticed 
a general uneasiness. Then he passed an Armenian who 
was running from one shop to the other, telling his brethren 
to close their shops and run, for the firing would soon com- 
mence. He walked on for five minutes from the spot where 
he had seen Murad, when he heard shots behind him. The 
people began to run, and he followed suit. Some friends 
told him afterwards that the Turks had fired at him, but he 
did not know whether it was the mob or the soldiers. He 
met one of the patrols of twenty soldiers, under command of 
an ofiicer, who were supposed to keep the peace. These men 



480 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

had drawn their revolvers and were shooting right and left 
down the street and into the windows. The bullets whistled 
unpleasantly near to Mr. Chambers, who walked on until he 
was with us at his home in the mission building. All this 
time a perfect fusillade was going on, mostly in the direction 
of the bazar. In the extreme western part of the city a large 
fire had broken out, the smoke of which drifted across the 
large barracks that are situated in that part of the city. There 
seven Armenians resisted the attack of the soldiers, who fired 
on them, riddled the house with bullets, and then set fire to 
it, and it continued to burn for twenty hours. 

One of the most curious things was the number of women 
hanging about the soldiers to carry oi¥ the plunder obtained. 
All the robbing and looting in our section was done entirely 
by the regular soldiery, commanded by their officers. At 
the head of the Gumruk street I saw the officers lead a detach- 
ment of soldiers to two Armenian houses; the commanding 
officers themselves knocked open the doors, entered, and 
looted the whole house, stripping it completely, not leaving 
even a 'liaseer" (straw mat). Just before this, an Armenian, 
with his head bandaged, came to the front door. We took 
him in. It was an awful sight ; the blood was running from 
the bandage all over his clothes. Mr. Chambers dressed his 
wound, which was an ugly skull wound. The bullet had 
entered just above the left eye, and it passed out, apparently, 
in the left temple; but there was also a hole in the back of the 
head. The wound continued to bleed for several hours. I 
was astonished to see a man with such a wound run up to 



t<TORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 481 

our place from the bazars and never once lose consciousness 
or faint from loss of blood. 

The Demir Sokak (Iron street) suffered fearfully. This 
street was nearly all Armenian; only a Turkish house here 
and there. P^rom our windows I saw the soldiers on the 
roofs robbing every house systematically, making up their 
bundles, which were carried away by horsemen, wdiom we 
saw passing the head of our street towards the Turkish quar- 
ter of the city. Next day this street was a woful sight. 
Every house was wrecked except those of the Protestant 
minister (Badvilli Krikor), a wealthy Armenian Protestant 
merchant, Ohanazar Aghajanian, and another, Manovg 
Agha (also a wealthy merchant), had been wrecked. These, 
I vras told, were protected by a friendly Turkish neighbor, 
who, however, robbed many of the others. The other 
houses Avere stripped bare; every door was either splintered 
to pieces or broken in, frame and all, by heavy sledge-ham- 
mers. This is what the soldiers did in our quarter, and later 
reports from rehable quarters left no doubt in my mind that 
they did most of the pillaging and almost all the killing. 

The suspense during the afternoon, during all the night, 
and the next morning, was intense. The house was by this 
time as foul-smelling as a menagerie. Babies were crying 
and wom_en were in hysterics. None would sit down, so 
nervous were they. When night came on there was no 
room for them to sleep. None of them had anything to eat, 
but, forfunately, Mr. Chambers was able to give them each 
a little native bread from a supply that had just been laid in. 
No one knew where his kinsfolk were. The worst fears 



>IS2 ^TORY OF TURKEY J._\L> ARMEMA. 

haunted them all. Some wept for a brother, for a mother, 
or sister, or father. Some had left their children at home, 
too sick to take away, and there was one baby with smallpox 
in the crowd. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and we 
could see the Turks carrying away the plunder all night. 
Occasionally a volley of shots rang out clear on the cold air, 
or the barking of dogs. 

TURKEY FROM THE INSIDE. 
By Rev. Edward Riggs, Marsovan. 

Yes, we have had our massacre, too, and, although it is 
seven weeks today since it took place, the impression of it 
lias been so scorched mto my consciousness that it seems 
but yesterday whenever I recall the hideous scenes. For 
days and weeks it had been prognosticated, but the human 
mind is slow to take in such strangely improbable things, 
and no one realized that it was really coming. When, how- 
ever, the very day and hour were openly talked about, and 
warnmgs, friendly and hateful, were greatly multiplied, some 
of those most likely to be in exposed positions went to the 
authorities and asked whether they would be safe to open 
their shops the next day. Let the sheep go and ask the wolf 
where he had better find shelter! They were assured that 
nothing should happen to them, and that they should, in any 
case, be protected, etc. The next day was Friday, and at 
noon the muezzin called from the minaret the hour of 
prayer. Flundreds crowded to the mosques, and Moslem 
fanaticism was at his high-water mark. In the yard of one 



ISTOKY OF. TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 483 

of these mosques someone fired two shots, and another rolled 
over and screamed in well-simulated agony. At once the 
cry arose that the holy assemblage was attacked, and as the 
crowd surged out of the building, it was only a question 
where the lightning would strike first. Many were already 
armed, and others rushed to their houses to seize such arms 
as they could lay their hands upon. Axes, clubs, knives — 
anything with which a deadly blow could be struck. At first 
the mob surged up toward the mission premises. Fugitives, 
rushing wildly in, brought the dread news, and our gates 
were at once closed and bolted. But slight defence would they 
have been against the fanatical mob if they had actually as- 
sailed them. The large school buildings were abandoned, 
and students huddled together in frightened groups in the 
missionaries' houses. Nearer and yet nearer rolled the vol- 
ume of mingled sound. Frantic yell, despairing scream, 
and sickening groan, with rifle and pistol shots, and thun- 
dering banging on doomed doors, thud of axe, and crash of 
useless barriers. Bullets came whistling over toward the 
school building, rattling on tiles and clapboards. Houses 
separated from our own premises by but a thin mud wall 
were gutted, and their occupants butchered, and through 
cracks in one of our gates a woman was seen lying close by, 
groaning in the agonies of death. It would seem, however, 
that these assailants were but skirmishing detachments, and 
the main body of the mob was met and turned back by influ- 
ential and humane Turks, as well as by gendarmes and sol- 
diers. Then they headed for the market, with an eye to 
plunder. In a few minutes 120 Armenians were slain, and 



484 ;62'(>A'l" OF TURKEY AyU ARMEMA. 

their shops looted and left as clean as if they had never con- 
tained an article. Indelibly printed on my memory is the 
scene in our own sitting-room during those awful hours. 
Pupils and teachers and servants and neighbors crowded to- 
gether in our small rooms. Tears were few, but pale faces, 
fixed eyes and rigid features, with suppressed groans, and 
whispered exclamations, showed the depth of the emotion — 
the horror and dread that filled all hearts. When the horrid 
tide was swelling nearest, we expected every moment to see 
our own gates crashed in. Then we raised our voices to 
heaven in such a prayer as perhaps no one of us ever poured 
forth before. Neighbors, unaccustomed to such worship, 
were hushed in silent awe, and joined in our Amen. When 
our prayer came to a close, we found that the tide had turned, 
the din was sounding more distant, and it appeared that our 
premises were intact. It was the hand of God, working 
through the friendliness of individual Turks, and through 
the policy of the government, which desired that so far as 
convenient no direct harm should come to foreigners. The 
local governor detailed a detachment of soldiers to surround 
and protect our premises, and toward night brought us a 
squad of thirty soldiers, under the command of a Heutenant, 
who have remained on our grounds ever since. 

On the day which followed that terrible 15th of November 
a ghastly sight was visible from our windows. In the little 
valley that lies between us and the Armenian cemetery were 
deposited the corpses of the slain. No tender hand com- 
posed the Hmbs, or washed away the clotted blood. Cart- 
load after cartload, they were brought like so much refuse, 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 485 

and dumped in disordered heaps. Even there they were 
not let alone, but covetous hands stripped off the few remain- 
ing rags, leaving the bodies in every degree of nudity. Then 
a long trench was dug, and eighty-three corpses were laid in 
it and covered up to wait till their testimony shall be called 
for at the last judgment. Among them were five women and 
several children. 

We are conscious that we stand face to face with very 
threatening possibilities. Present duty seems to be clearly 
to stand at our post, hoping for the best, and prepared for the 
worst. If we survive the great changes that are evidently 
imminent, we shall hope for a broader and more fruitful field 
of labor than we have ever had before. And if we should be 
suddenly eliminated from the sphere of this great problem, 
we know that sooner or later others will take our places, and 
the work to which our lives are devoted will in due time be 
accomplished. 



480 



STORT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 



Tabular View of the Armenian Massacres, 



Name of Town. 



Date of 
Massacre. 



Constantinople 

Ak Hisaar 

Trebizond 

Baiburt 

Gumushane 

Erzingjan 

Bitlis 

Harpoot 

Sivas 

Palu 

Diarbekr 

Albistan . 

Erzeronm 

Oiirfa 

Kara Hissar,... 

M.i'atia 

Marash 

Aintab 

Gnrnn . 

Arabkir 

Argana 

Sevcrek , 

Mnbh 

Tokat 

Amas^ia 

Marsovan 

Cesarea 

Gemerek 

Eojin 

Zileh 

Se'ert 



Sept. 

Oct. 

Oct. 

Oct. 

Oct. 

Oct. 

Oct. 

Nov. 

Nov. 

Oct. 

Oct. 

Oct. 

Oct. 

Nov. 

Oct. 

Nov. 

Nov. 

Nov. 

Nov. 

Nov. 



Nov. 



Nov. 
Nov. 



18 

15 

10 
fi 

No 
No 

15 
No 
No 

15 

30 
No 
No 
No 
No 



Number 
Killed. 



172 

45 

800 

1,000^ 

1,000 ' 
!)00 

1000 

1200 
450 

2,500 
300 



No 



500 

2c0 

1,000 

] 

3.oro 
2.009 
details 
details 


details 
details 
125 
1,000 
details 
details 
details 
details 



No 



By whom done. 



Police and Softas 
Moslem villagers 
Soldiers, Lazes, and Turks 
Lazes and Turks 
details 

Soldiers and Turks 
Soldiers, Kurds, and Turks 
Soldiers, Kurds, and Turks 
Soldiers and Tuiks 
Soldiers, Kurds, and Turks 
Soldiers, Kurds, and Turks 

Soldiers and Turks 

Circassians and Turks 

Soldiers and Turks 

details 

Kurds and Turks 

Kurds and Turks 



Kurds 



Turks 

Circassians and Turks 



Turkish Statistics tor Seven Vilayets with Estimated Losses. 

Armenian population Iq larger towns 177,700 

Armenian population in villages 588^500 

Number killed in towns (et^timated) 20,000 

Number of Armenian villages (about) 3 300 

Number of villages destroyed (estimated) 2,500 

Number killed in villages No data 

Number reduced to starvation in towns (estimated) 75,000 

Number reduced to starvation in villages (estimated) 350,000 

Note.— All the numbers given above, including the Turkish statistics, are more or 
less inaccurate, but the estimates are based upon a careful study of all the informa- 
tion which has reached Constantinople from many independent sources. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 48< 



CHAPTER XVI. 

GLARA BARTON AND THE RED CROSS. 

By Myrtis Willmot Barton. 

The story goes that toward the end of the sixteenth cen- 
tury there hved in Lancashire five brothers, who decided 
that not only was Lancashire too small, but England not 
quite large enough, to hold them all ; so one w^ent to Ireland, 
and from him come the Bartons of Grove; another wended 
his way to the land of the canny Scots, w^here in time the 
name became changed to Bartan; a third crossed over to 
France, where his descendants bear the name of Bartin; a 
fourth settled in Southern England, under the name of Bur- 
ton; and, after fifty years, the younger son of that Barton 
wdio remained in the old home, one Marmaduke by name, 
Vv'as seized with the wandering spirit of his race, and, coming 
to America within a dozen years after the landing at Ply- 
mouth, founded the family of which Clara Barton is the 
brightest hght. Thus she comes from a race of sturdy pio- 
neers and volunteer soldiers; the very name Barton in the 
Anglo-Saxon means "defender of the town." 

Her father. Captain Stephen (one of the youngest sons of 
Dr. Stephen Barton and beautiful Dorothy Aloore), was a 
man prominent in the business and political life of his town 
and State; until incapacitated by age, he was always chosen 



488 8 TORY OF TURKEY -AND ARMENIA. 

"Moderator'' to preside at town meetings; he was also a 
captain of the mihtia — being a soldier by training and nature, 
having served for three years in the Indian w^ars by the time 
he was of age ; and, in short, was a nikn universally respected 
and esteemed for his bravery and goodness of heart. The 
family into which my Aunt Clara was born was already a 
grow^n-up one, she being the youngest, by a dozen years, of 
live children. With her two sisters and eldest brother all 
teachers themselves, it is not surprising that she began her 
school-life at the age of three, riding to and from the rude 
little building on the shoulder of her big brother Stephen, 
who was a teacher there, and studying quietly in classes by 
the side of boys and girls many years her senior. She has 
told me she never remembers possessing a doll, her loving 
care having been lavished on the pets of the household — a 
sick cat or dog appealing more strongly to her sympathies 
than anything else. The only inanimate playthings she had 
were wooden soldiers fashioned by her brothers, and with 
these her father would amuse and interest her, as together 
they fought over the battles of his younger days, until she 
felt all the fire and enthusiasm of a soldier following the lead 
of Mad Anthony Wayne, and learned lessons in military tac- 
tics and war as though in preparation for the life before her. 
Lest I give the idea that her time was devoted entirely to 
books, I must speak of her outdoor life, for she was one of 
those fleet-footed, agile girls, strong of limb, clear-headed, 
and perfectly at home in a saddle. Her younger brother, 
David, instead of being studiously inclined, as were the 
others, was passionately fond of horses; so that when she 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 489 

was but a wee child he would put her on the back of a young 
horse, while he, on another, would hold her hand, and to- 
gether they would canter around the fields, in and out among 
the other horses, broken and unbroken. Those who know 
her now will understand what a sensitive, shrinking girl she 
must have been, never thrusting herself forward, and avoid- 
ing, rather than seeking, strangers; although, in her own 
home, she was gay and hght-hearted, full of fun and jokes, 
with the keen sense of humor which she has never outgrown, 
and the power of making the drollest speeches in a quiet, irre- 
sistible way; the knack of remembering, and telling well, a 
good story has always been one of her greatest charms. Re- 
membering her shyness and modesty, one can imagine how 
soon it must have been tried, when, as a little nine-year-old 
girl, she went away from home to board in the family of the 
teacher under whom she was to study. The love and respect 
she bore this man are things of which she cannot speak now 
with dry eyes, and his sayings and advice she remembers 
and often repeats to this day. 

Thus the years passed, first in study, then at home caring 
for a sick brother — nursing him through a dangerous illness 
though a mere child herself; and, when scarce entering girl- 
hood, away with a school of her own to teach, and later at a 
college for young women, until she came back to assist her 
brothers in the counting-rooms of the mills they had built. 
She was always w^ise, always helpful — going home when 
needed, and, when the work in hand was done, going away 
to earn a little more by her teaching or bookkeeping, and 
with those earnings to further educate lierself — taking a few 



490 STORY OF TURRET AND ARMENIA. 

lessons in one thing here, a few more in another branch there 
— until she went to Washington as one of the first women in 
a department of the government. 

Her labors in the civil war have been recounted to often 
and so minutely that I shall not undertake to describe them 
again in so brief a sketch as this. The story of her courage 
and self-sacrifice the world can never know in its fullness — • 
except as she consents to give it to us in the autobiography 
upon which she is now at work. 

In Miss Barton's home in Washington is a collection of 
Andersonville relics — rude cups and plates, and still ruder 
tools, all made by those poor prisoners, and these, while each 
speaking of heartache and misery, bear also, to those who 
know how to read between the lines, a story of that melan- 
choly comfort that makes a woman rejoice, even though her 
loved ones be dead, in knowing that they were given Chris- 
tian burial, and that a woman's hand, with pity and tender- 
ness, marked their last resting-place. To see Miss Barton 
before a group of Grand Army men shows how she must 
have w^orked and ministered through those long, hard years 
of war to have so won the esteem and admiration of these 
strong men. 

Clara Barton's connection with the Red Cross began when, 
at the end of the sixties, worn out and broken down in health, 
she went to Switzerland to rest and grow strong again, only 
to find there more work to do, and, finding it, to so enter into 
it, heart and soul, as never to lay it down. At the breaking 
out of the Franco-Prussian \var there came to her, in her 
Swiss cottage, several members of the International Com- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA, 491 

mittee of the Red Cross, en route for the scene of action. 
They explained their errand, begged her to join them, and 
finally so filled her with enthusiasm that, ill as she was, she 
promised to follow them within a fortnight. 

She was at once presented to the sweet, unassuming 
daughter of Kaiser William I, the Grand Duchess of Baden, 
wdio, with her ladies of the court around her, was working as 
hard and unceasingly as any simple woman of our own land 
worked during our great conflict; and, as they worked to- 
gether, these two women found themselves mutually helpful 
— my aunt bringing forward her practical experience, and 
the Grand Duchess being able to teach her the methods and 
objects of the Red Cross, its workings and its ways; so that, 
all through her months there, in the field, at court, or in the 
hospitals, while she was doing good in her own way, she was 
acquiring the knowledge necessary for the fulfillment of her 
ultimate promise — to work unceasingly until she should 
have brought her own country into the treaty; for the inter- 
national character of the Red Cross is a feature of the great- 
est importance, though often forgotten. 

It would be impossible to enter here into a detailed ac- 
count of her life during the Franco-Prussian strife ; it would 
be too long a story, however interesting, to follow her about 
from hospital to battle-field, and from Strassburg to Paris, 
wdiich latter place she entered the day after the siege was 
raised ; but, as an illustration of her work there, and as show- 
ing the sorrows of the weaker sex during war, there stands 
out in my mind one picture. Among the recollections of a 
dozen years ago I remember seeing in a little Frenchwoman's 



492 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

Studio a large, unfinished painting of a scene in a Sirassburg 
hospital. It was a picture to appeal to my childish eyes, for 
there stood my aunt with her head turned away toward a baby 
in a woman's arms, while women leaned toward her to catch 
a word, and children clung to her skirts, and one little boy, 
half afraid, had Hfted a corner of her gown to his lips. I liope 
that picture may be finished some day. The gown in this 
picture, by the way, is green, my aunt's favorite color. The 
story is told that one of her sisters once said: "Wlien Clara 
goes to town to buy a brown dress, a brown dress I know 
she will get, for Clara always does as she says. But, one way 
or another, that dress always manages to turn green before 
she can get home.'' 

I have said that as regards the international character of 
the Red Cross so little seems to be knovvu; the name, as a 
general rule, brings to people's minds a hazy idea of ''trained 
nurses," and "something to do with hospitals," when in 
reality it stands for a great treaty entered into by the nations 
of the earth for the purpose of alleviating the sufferings of 
war. It shows tliat, although that glorious day when war 
shall be over and all difficulties settled by arbitration has not 
yet come, still the time has arrived when a wounded man is 
no longer left to die on the field, nor shut up in a prison to 
expire little by little — that the time has even now come when 
the sick and wounded of the enemy are cared for with the . 
same tenderness shown one's own. 

Under the flag of the Red Cross all ground is neutral ; all 
persons lawfully wearing its brassard can go uninolested ; in 
its hospitals are found friend and foe, side by side, witli every 



STORY OF TURKEY A.\D ARMENIA. 493 

thought of personal strife left outside its walls, and only the 
motto of. humanity and neutrality in mind. One by one, 
nearly every civilized nation of the world has accepted the 
invitation to enter, becoming a party to the great treaty ; and 
the reasons that the United States did not join sooner are, 
first, that the idea was never presented to the people them- 
selves, the knowledge of tlie treaty never having gone beyond 
the State Department; and, second, that the possibility of 
war for us was so remote that our Government seemed to 
think it a useless step until the new feature known as the Am- 
erican Amendment was suggested, wdiereby relief was to be 
given to the victims of the terrible national calamities so 
frequent here; this additional to the original scope of the 
treaty, in its purely war character, made it appeal more fully 
to our people and our officials. Since the adhesion of the 
United States, in 1882, several succeeding nations, in joining, 
liave added the American Amendment to the provisions of 
the treaty. 

It is a long story, that of those ten years between the close 
of the Continental war and the final accession of the United 
States — a long story, full of discouragements, false hopes 
and disappointments, full of weary nionths, I may say years, 
of nervous prostration, when my aunt was so ill that it seemed 
as if she were a weak little child, and had to grow up again. 
But, as soon as she was able, she was up from her sick-bed 
and in Washington, ready to begin the work to which she 
had pledged herself; and, at last, through the interest and co- 
operation of those great statesmen, Garfield, Windom and 
Blaine, steps were taken necessary for making the United 



494 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

States one of the Red Cross nations — the untimely death of 
the martyred President leaving the honor of signing the 
treaty to his successor, President Arthur, who afl&xed his sig- 
nature and made proclamation of the fact in 1882. 

We have had no wars in the past fifteen years to call the 
Red Cross into its original field of action, but in the time of 
suffering from the elements it has come nobly to the front, 
doing the work of humanity in the quiet, unostentatious way 
characteristic of its American president; asking nothing, dis- 
tributing what was given with a wise and generous, though 
frugal, hand, bringing order out of chaos, feeding the hun- 
gry and clothing the destitute, at first; teaching the people 
to help themselves rather than making them objects of char- 
ity; so that, in every case where the Red Cross has quitted a 
field, it has left the mass of the people better ofif than before 
the disaster — better off because of the practical lessons in- 
culcated as well as from the gifts distributed. 

It has worked at such times as those of the forest fires of 
Michigan, the Texas drought, the Mount Vernon cyclone, 
the Johnstown flood, twice on the Ohio at the time of the 
floods, for ten months at the Sea Islands after the cyclone 
and floods there; and, after being at home but one year, 
preparations are even now being made whereby, if so de- 
cided. Miss Barton will start with a few of her staff for the 
East, to carry food, money and clothes to the suffering Ar- 
menians. This, if undertaken, will be a new and terrible 
kind of work — an undertaking full of peril and danger, and 
one requiring the head of a diplomat and a heart of courage, 
as well as the hand and soul of a philanthropist. 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 495 

Altogether, the work of the Red Cross here has been of a 
different nature from that m other countries; that it is not 
conducted on quite the same plans and principles as in Ger- 
many of Italy, for instance, is due to the difference between 
the governments of those countries and ours, the difference 
in the character of the people, and to the entirely different 
kind of work needed. That there are so few authorized sub- 
societies is owing mainly to lack of knowledge and even to 
indifference on the part of many. In New York city there 
is, however, an association under its direct patronage, which, 
since its founding, has done good and faithful work in its 
nursing among the poor, as well as in its hospital and train- 
ing school, which is to supply all the nurses used by the 
National Red Cross. 

The New York branch, of which Mrs. Charles H. Ray- 
mond is president, is at present located on One Hundredth 
street, between the Boulevard and West End avenue, and is 
under the supervision of Miss Bettina Hofker, who, although 
but a young girl, has won laurels for her self-sacrifice and 
devotion while working in the slums of this city, before she 
undertook the larger and more responsible position of train- 
ing "Sisters" for true Red Cross work. It will be a gratifi- 
cation to the people of New York to know that their institu- 
tion is the especial pride of Miss Barton, it being begun and 
carried out on the genuine Red Cross ideas, brought straight 
from Germany. 

The American National Red Cross has its headquarters at 
Miss Barton's home in Washington — in a house well fitted, 
because of its location and history, to be the centre of such a 



496 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

work as that of the Red Cross. On the corner of Seven- 
teenth and F streets, across the street from the War, State 
and Navy Departments, and on the opposite corner from the 
famous old Winder Building, stands a large, old-fashioned 
house, a place of great, high-studded rooms — plain, com- 
fortable, staid and substantial, but with a total absence of 
any suggestion of luxury. Here live Clara Barton and the 
Red Cross. The house was built in Jefferson's time, and for 
many years was the private residence of General Jessup, of 
the old army ; then, during the civil war, it was the headquar- 
ters of the army of Generals Halleck and Grant; and my 
aunt has pointed out to me the room in which, for months, 
lived the famous Indian, General Eli Parker, and has told me 
a story of his singular life and ways. In another room Gen- 
eral Horace Porter had his ofifice, and out of General Grant's 
great room was that of Colonel Dent, while many other well- 
known names are associated with the various rooms. 

It is a house in which to remember half-forgotten stories 
and bits of history, each and all suggested by the rooms 
themselves or their contents. Thus, in a vase in the recep- 
tion-room one sees a large bunch of wild rice, gathered and 
dried by my aunt at the siege of Fort Wagner — gathered 
from a spot over which had rained shot and shell for a whole 
long day; close beside it stands a modern photograph of her 
Highness the Grand Duchess of Baden; while upstairs, in 
my aunt's own room, there hangs, in its quaint frame of 
twenty-five years ago, a larger portrait of her, showing the 
sweet, womanly face as my aunt first knew it in its youthful 
beauty. Again, one finds some curious and beautiful pil- 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 497 

lows of Russia leather in all colors, sent home at the time of 
the rehef work of our Red Cross during the Russian famine; 
and in an out-of-the-way corner, as far from being on exhi- 
bition as possible, lies a bit of wood from the fence of the 
dead-line within Andersonville prison. 

The walls of the corridors are hung with banners and im- 
mense flags of all nations. Norway and Sweden greet one 
upon opening the door; on either side hang the crown of 
Italy and the cross of St. George and St. Andrew; in the 
drawling-room are two beautiful flags of silk — the dainty 
blue and white of Greece, surmounted by the silver ball and 
crescent; and the flag of brave little Switzerland, of which 
our Red Cross is the reverse. The most magnificent of 
these is the enormous black eagle of Prussia; in the upper 
corridor hangs the flag of United Germany, the large eagle, 
vvith its circle of smaller ones; then come the tri-color of 
France, the Russian ensign, and many others, all sent as 
personal gifts in appreciation and acknowledgment of her 
service under the one little flag to which they all bow. 

As is the case with all the rest of the house. Miss Barton's 
office is devoid of useless luxuries ; it is plain, simple and de- 
voted entirely to business. Here she works from early in 
the morning until late at night, answering personally and by 
dictation the enormous daily correspondence from all parts 
of the world, transacting business of all kinds, working 
quietly and steadily for hours, forgetting to eat, and, one is 
tempted to say, to sleep as well, for she is always the first one 
up in the morning, and frequently works until away into tlic 
small hours of the night. 



498 STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 

The question naturally arises, How has she preserved her 
strength and youth so marvelously? The only answer to 
my mind seems to lie in the fact that she is so quiet and calm 
that she never wastes her strength, coupled with a thor- 
oughly acquired knowledge of how to live and keep well; 
and as for sleep, she has the happy faculty of being able, at 
any time and in any place, to curl up, sometimes in the most 
cramped positions, and sleep for fifteen minutes, then, wak- 
ing, to take up the conversation or vv^ork just where it was 
dropped and go on. 

The letters she receives are most curious, interesting and 
touching; all of them showing love — and all receive the 
same kind attention. Indeed, I have seen her, on several 
occasions, toss aside, until she had more time, some delicate 
letter in the unintelligible fashionable hand of the day — 
from some stranger who thinks she has more time to study 
over the writers words than the latter has to write them dis- 
tinctly in the first place — only to take up reverently and lov- 
ingly a poor, misspelled, badly written, much-blotted letter 
of love and thanks written by a Southern negro whom the 
Red Cross had helped at some time. 

Questions are frequently asked concerning Miss Barton's 
religious belief; on that score I can say that she comes of a 
family of most liberal-minded people, and this, combined 
with her life, has led her to adopt the true Red Cross spirit, 
making no distinction in the race, nationality, nor creed — 
the word "humanity" embracing everything — so that it may 
well be said of her, as Thomas Paine said of himself: "The 
world is my country; to do good is my religion.'^ 



STORY OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 499 

That she is a fluent writer, everyone knows ; but not every- 
one knows of the dainty bits of verse she has been in the habit 
of writing since her girlhood. She also adds to her other 
accomplishments that of reading aloud most charmingly, 
and sometimes gives her family and a few friends deUghtful 
treats in that way. 

At home, as in the field, she is never idle ; and when trav- 
eling is never distressed by inconveniences by the w^ay. I 
have journeyed with her throughout the Western country, 
in parts unsettled and wild ; I have ridden miles with her over 
rough Western trails while she told of roads during war- 
times — roads rough and unbroken, with mud to the hubs of 
the wheels, over which she rode on a springless wagon, the 
only woman, with a band of mutinous men, when, to show 
one sign of fear or fatigue, would have meant failure to her; 
and when the wagon stuck and the men refused to help, deli- 
cate little woman that she was, she was out in the mud with 
her own shoulder to the wheel, until, for very shame, the 
men fell to work with a will. 

I have seen her in camp, where she has taught us how^ 
really comfortable and delightful an out-of-door life can be 
made without any of the conveniences of modern appliances. 

Again, on the Atlantic coast, in her native State, I have 
seen her in a State's prison, in a group of the most hardened, 
obstreperous of women offenders, still quiet and gentle, but 
controlhng them so that not one would disobey her, and 
even the most ugly had a word of praise. This was at 
Sherborn, Mass., to which place General Butler asked her to 
come as superintendent of the Woman's Reformatory Prison 



(o.r^^ ^^ 






500 STORY OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA. 

for the year 1883. She, remembering his kindness and good- 
ness to her and her family in the years gone by, gladly went 
to help straighten out one of the tangles of his governorship. 
Her home in Dansville was another place where for a few 
years she was able to hve in quiet, peace and retirement 
among the trees and vines of that beautiful spot on the hill- 
side, resting in preparation for the greater work of after 
years. 

In conclusion, I can say that if Clara Barton ever had a 
motto or watchword, she has kept it so modestly in the back- 
ground that even I never heard of it; but her idea of life, I 
often think, lies in what she once said to me when, with the 
feverish haste and impatience of youth, I was longing for 
great things to do. "Be always calm, my child," she said; 
''keep yourself quiet and in restraint, reserve your energies, 
doing those little things that lie in your way, each one as well 
as you can, saving your strength, so that when God does call 
you to do something good and great you will not have 
wasted -your force and strength with useless strivings, but 
will be ready to do the work quickly and well. Go slowly, 
my child — and keep ready." 



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